


The Game Show of Death

by Luukiead



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: I imagine its a bit like the old Goosebumbs books mixed with a text based game, Other, THE WHOLE POINT OF THIS IS FOR YOU TO DECIDE WHAT TO DO NEXT, VOTE ALL YOU WANT, based on SCP-024, because that's my favourite SCP, like if you dont comment then I can't carry on, that's the deal here, this all is based on you so I kinda need your co-operation here, this is just something fun
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-11-23
Updated: 2015-02-14
Packaged: 2018-02-26 15:29:11
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 23
Words: 45,387
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2657060
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Luukiead/pseuds/Luukiead
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <strong> RULES:   1) YOUR OBJECTIVE IS TO MAKE EREN WIN THE GAME SHOW OF DEATH.</strong>
  <br/>
  <strong>              2) YOUR DECISIONS AFFECTS WHAT HAPPENS IN THE GAME SHOW OF DEATH. TO CONTINUE THE STORY, VOTE. VOTES ARE COUNTED AND THE WINNING OPTION TAKEN.</strong>
  <br/>
  <strong>              3) CHAPTERS WILL BE POSTED AT MIDNIGHT GMT(+0) EVERY OTHER DAY UNTIL EREN IS EITHER DEAD OR HAS WON. </strong>
  <br/>
  <strong>              4) CAST YOUR VOTE TO PLAY. IF INSUFFICIENT VOTES ARE CAST, THE GAME IS OVER AND EREN DIES. </strong>
  <br/>
  <strong>              5) THERE IS ONLY ONE WINNER IN THE GAME SHOW OF DEATH. AND EREN MUST WIN. </strong>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Start game.

_CH—CHI…CHI-CHI-CHI-CHI-CHI…HMMMMMMMM_

Eren blinks against the blinding lights, seven glaring orbs of white floating in front of his vision. He can see nothing beyond them, nothing but those lights. It is just him. Alone.

He spins on the spot, frantically searching for anything else beyond the wall of black. There is nothing there; his breath rising, pulse racing as he tries his hardest to search for a sign of anything, anyone.

“Armin!” He screams out into the blackness. “ARMIN! MIKASA!”

“We’re here, we’re here Eren.” A female voice full of worry calls to his right. Stumbling footsteps carry through the darkness, and suddenly her face appears. Mikasa, her dark hair tied into a plat by her right ear, is shaking, holding onto a quaking Armin, his blond hair messed and blue eyes glassy. His bottom lip trembles, small whimpers slipping through.

Eren grabs them both into a tight hug, focusing his eyes over their shoulders to the lights still swinging around in front of his eyes. He swallows.

“Where… where the fuck is this?”

But he did not know. Neither do his friends, their bodies pressed tightly against his—as though it could make a difference.

**_BUT THIS IS WHERE YOU COME IN_ **

**_THIS IS WHERE YOU CHANGE  EREN'S LIFE._ **

The lights rise, and suddenly it is not just the three of them in the room. Fifteen people, including themselves, stand in spots of light. They are evenly spread out, but they all stand together in clusters of two or three.

To Eren’s left are two men, clasping their hands between them and both muttering to each other in quiet tones, nervously searching the room and keeping each other close. Next to that pair is a trio, all in school uniforms, perhaps in their mid-teens. The tallest boy of the three wipes his eyes, the blond boy next to him rubbing his friend’s shoulder firmly whilst the girl pulls a packet of tissues out of her school bag.  Just opposite Eren is a pair of people, worn-out glow-sticks around their necks and rave beads on their wrists that glow in the dark. Next to them is a small group of three. A short, pale man wrestles with a woman for something in her hand, another man trying to force him off by tugging hard at his jacket. The short man looks strong, but incredibly antsy. To their right are two young women both dressed completely in black and holding balaclavas in their hands, sharing glances more intrigued than scared. The spotlight to Eren’s right is empty, but presumably that is where Armin and Mikasa had stood.

 **“Welcome,”** a booming voice greets them in all directions, coming from nowhere in particular, **“to The Game Show of Death. Ladies and gentlemen, you are all about to take part in a game show in which the winner will receive amazing prizes. This can be anything your heart desires; a holiday, a new car… Even paying off your mortgage! And all you have to do is beat The Game Show of Death. Now how does that sound?”**

The two women in black grin at each other and nod. Most of the others look pretty terrified. The two men look ready to bolt. Armin holds onto Eren tightly, eyebrows furrowed in confusion. Mikasa seems determined.

Eren is unsure of what to think. A prize sounds amazing; after all if it was cash then he could help pay his mother’s medical bills, or cover the utilities for a while whilst she is out of work. Winning would make everything so much easier for everyone. Heck, it might even get him or Mikasa through college with that bit of extra money. It's a strange, one-in-a-lifetime opportunity he will never get again, and it seems like such a waste for it to slip from his grasp just because he wants to give up.

But he knows it comes at a cost. After all, this is called ‘The Game Show of Death’.

The voice continues. **“However this is not an ordinary game show.** **It is potentially hazardous, and any losers or in-game quitters will be stuck in The Game Show of Death indefinitely. Now,”** the voice laughs, **“I’m not saying you cannot leave at all. Until the game officially starts, you can go home at any time and not participate. However, if you choose to leave you may never return here your one chance at winning your dream prize will slip through your fingertips. So the choice is up to you. Do you stay and play to win, or do you go away and get nothing? You have ten minutes to decide.”**

 

~~**READER, THE CHOICE IS YOURS.** ~~

~~**WILL EREN:** ~~

~~**A)** **LEAVE THE GAME SHOW OF DEATH AND RELINQUISH ALL HOPE OF THE PRIZE.**~~

~~**OR** ~~

~~**B)** **ACCEPT AND PARTICIPATE IN THE GAME SHOW OF DEATH FOR A CHANCE TO WIN.**~~

**DECISION MADE. CONTINUE TO NEXT CHAPTER.**


	2. OPTION B

**YOU CHOSE: B) ACCEPT AND PARTICIPATE IN THE GAME SHOW OF DEATH**

 

The lights rise in the room, and suddenly it is clear to Eren what is inside.

The fifteen people stand alone in a large sound stage. Industrial lights hang from the ceiling and point to them, an empty seating area spreads from a pace away from the drop below them and out into the darkness filled with nothing but red velvet chairs only faintly visible for the first few rows. They are all situated on the round stage in the centre of the room, perhaps five feet higher than the relief below. Each small cluster of people is only just out of arm reach to the left and right… but the atmosphere is tense and the people strangers.

“Reiner…” the tall school kid whimpers; the first to break the silence, “I want to go.”

“Yeah me too, this is a load of crap.” The young girl flings her bag over her shoulder and begins to stalk to the edge of the stage. “Y’comin’ Bert?”

The tearful boy, Bert, nods and pulls away from the other young lad. Eren feels Armin and Mikasa tense against him, and he knows they’re looking to him, but right now he cannot tear his eyes away. He watches as the girl and the boy jump off of the stage, the other boy running up with his own grey rucksack swung over his shoulder.

“You’re seriously leaving?!” he shouts, “You’re just gonna leave me here on my own.”

“Come with us, you idiot.” The girl shouts, and then looks up to the ceiling. “Y’hear us? We want out of here.”

 **“As you wish. It’s such a shame you are leaving the show so early,”** the commentator sighs, almost as though it truly were disappointed, **“but as per the promise, there is a door open just past the stands. We wish you all the best!”** The voice leaves a gap open, as though waiting for the invisible audience’s applaud. And the three kids head past the chairs, their footsteps disappearing into the distance… then they’re gone.

There are only twelve people left.

One of the two men to Eren’s left sighs. Eren notices for the first time that they are dressed identically in a blue boiler suit and a number on their right lapels, one man’s sleeves rolled up to reveal a thick metal bangle wrapped around his wrist. “I hope they let them go,” says the taller man of the two, gripping the hand of the other tighter.

 “Oi!” Everyone looks up to the short man who had been wrestling with the woman next to him. He shoves his hands in his pockets and looks as the man who had just spoken. “What d’ya mean, ‘they’?”

“Outside. They’re waiting outside for anyone to come out.” The man in the blue boiler suit talks, running his hand through his dark hair.

The tall, blond man that is with the angry man and the woman cocks his head to one side and grimaces. “But who?”

“We don’t know,” the other man in the blue boiler suit pipes up, “but they’re pretty official. That’s why we’re staying… if we leave then we’re no use to ‘em, and we’re dead.” He stops for a moment. “You should all stay too. The more of us in here, the higher the chance that whatever the fuck this is will let more of us out at the end.”

"How do you know that?" The short man asks.

The shorter of the two men in boiler suits shrugs. "We don't. But we heard things..."

“Well we’re staying.” One woman, balaclava in her right hand, steps forward. Behind her a tall woman her brown hair tied in a tight bun puts her hand on her partner’s shoulder. “We’re here to find out what this shit is hiding.”

“Us too.” Eren looks across from him and to the bald man in front of him, thin t-shirt reading ‘PLUR’ in bright green letters. “There's shit goin' 'round about this place, an’ we ain’t leavin’ until we check it out.”

 “I’m staying too.” Eren and Armin look to Mikasa. There is determination in her eyes, and Eren too feels it. He wants to know what is up, curiosity getting the better of him.

“Me too.” Eren agrees.

Armin does not look so sure. All eyes are focused on him, and it takes a few seconds for his answer.

“If you two are staying, then I’ll stay too.”

“And you three?” The dark haired man in the boiler suit looks to the two men and the woman.

“For Levi, sure.” The woman smiles, just in time for the short man to thump her around the stomach with his right arm. She doubles over, still grinning madly. “And the others will do it too.”

 **“You have one minute left!”** The commentator calls. Eren flinches slightly when it feels as though the voice is being shouted into his right ear, but shrugs the feeling of warm breath against his neck away.

“So is that it then?” The tall blond man asks the group, “Is everyone here staying?”

There is a chorus of hums and yesses. Eren nods, his hand searching for Mikasa’s and squeezing it tight. Armin’s back moves into Eren’s chest slightly, and the three of them stay close.

They wait in silence. All unsure of the exact time, they count down un-numbered seconds in silence and wait for the booming voice that marks the end of their freedom.

 **“Ten seconds!”** The voice calls, and as Eren looks around the room, he can see mouths counting down to an unknown.

Nine. He sucks in a deep breath and lets it go.

Eight. His stomach churns violently at the lack of oxygen left in him. How much did he let go? Has he made the right decision?

Seven. The look on everyone’s faces just screams of their terror. The short man is going pale, the two men in the boiler suits clinging closer to each other than ever. They seem close.

Six. Eren wonders if this is just a joke, a prank. He wonders if what the entity-less voice says is true.

Five. Potentially hazardous. That’s what it had said, right? It must be joking.

Four. It’s got to be joking.

Three. He could quit. He could quit it now, take Armin and Mikasa and know they’re both safe. Joking isn’t a certainty.

Two. No. He’ll win. Eren will win with both of them. He’ll be the winner.

One. The winner. Singular.

 **“Times up!”** The voice cackles.

And the room goes dark.

Someone screams. Eren cannot find the source in the absolute pitch black, but with Armin and Mikasa so close to him, he knows that they are safe. Whimpers and small cries carry on for a few seconds… and then suddenly Eren is tugged away. Something grabs him in the darkness and pulls him away from the others and he shouts out, breath gushing from him, feeling Mikasa’s palm slip through his as he is dragged away by something shadowy.

The shadow drops him to the floor, and next to him he hears the same thing; a smack of someone falling to the hard ground.

“Fuck!” he shouts. His lower back aches, coccyx bruised. Eren clambers up to rest on his haunches. His fingers press against the ground ready to bounce him back up if need be. But he can see nothing but darkness.

 _CH-CHI-CHI-CHI-CHI-CHI-CHI…._ _HMMMM_

The lights rise.

And before Eren is a group of ten people.

 **“Ladies and gentlemen,”** the voice announces, a renewed brightness in its tone, **“welcome to The Game Show of Death. Are you ready for round one?”** It leaves a long, silent pause… then laughs. **“Excellent, excellent. Now! Since our contestants have never played the game before, how about we start with a little** **team on team competition to get in the swing of things?”**

Eren  looks next to him and sees one of the women—the tall, dark haired one—standing a few feet away, her arms pulled up into defensive fists. She stares back for a moment before searching the small crowd below.

 **“But first, teams!”** The energetic voice sighs loudly. **“Eren, Ymir… each of you will have five people to accompany you. But you can only choose one. The rest will be drawn from a hat at random. The only problem is you cannot choose someone you are already familiar with. That means for you, Ymir, you cannot pick Krista, and Eren you cannot pick Armin or Mikasa.”**

“No!” Eren’s sister throws herself forward, but something brings her back. A dark cloud, vaguely humanoid, tugs her back through the air and stands her next to Armin once again. The other people follow with their eyes, some mouths slung open.

 **“Settle down… Now, seeing as you both have no idea who these other people are, I think it is time for an introduction.”** The room is silent for a moment, and then it seems to grow an entity, jumping across the room to seemingly stand invisible next to the dark-haired man in the blue boiler suit. **“And who might you be?”**

“Uh… Marco.” The man says, looking around to try and catch the voice Eren can hear comes from somewhere close around him.

**“And Marco… who is your companion?”**

“Jean.”

 **“Well, lovely to meet the pair of you.”** The voice sings, cutting itself off with a laugh and a swing across to the short blonde woman, Krista, presumably, who jumped forward with a gasp. **“And you must be the wonderful Krista,”** the commentator continues, **“how wonderful. And of course, how could we forget Mikasa and Armin."**

Eren watches his friends squirm away, looking down the line to the people the voice had already passed. The five people left look at Jean, Marco, Krista, Armin and Mikasa as though they are all mad; skittering around and jumping at the sound of the voice that almost seems to brush up against them, breath in their ears. Eren watches, unnerved by the way it causes his steady and confident sister to watch the room as though it is filled with cobwebs.

The voice disappears for a short time. And then the woman with messy maroon hair yelps, jolting into the tall blond man. **“And this must be…”**

“I’m Hanji,” she exclaims. “And who are you?”

The voice laughs. **“I’m just the commentator. And who are your companions today?”**

“The short one is Levi and Mr. Suit-and-Boot is Erwin. We came here to—“

The short man cuts her off, his hand over her mouth. Erwin sighs loudly.

 **"And what about the dynamic duo over here?"** The voice smirks, dripping with well-exercised pleasantries.

"Woah, uh," the girl out of the pair starts, raising her hands in front of her chest, "I'm, like... woah this is creepy." She smiles nervously at the guy next to her. "I'm... Sasha. This is Con, uh, Connie."

"Yeah. Yo, that's me." Connie shrugs his shoulders and tries to smile down the line. He gets nothing in reply.

The commentator chuckles, and a breeze passes through the room... as though someone were moving. But they cannot see the source of the voice, only each other in the room.  **“Well, thank you everyone. I can see we have a diverse and lively bunch this time around!”** Apart from the sound of breathing, the silence the commentator leaves is deathly. Eren wonders what he should do, if he should say anything. **“And now, Eren and Ymir… this is a very important decision.”**

And suddenly the voice is upon him, in his ear, in Eren’s face. He recoils, Ymir doing the same thing at the same time. But there is no mouth to spread cold air onto his face. There is no body pressed against his. But Eren can feel it, this ghostly presence urging him to make a decision  _make a decision!_ The people in front of him stare. Their eyes glare up at him, imploring him to pick them. But which one does he choose. Which one is the best.

Which one will make him win?

The voice is low, a rough whisper... personal and secretive. It comes closer, invisible mouth opening. It asks its question.  **"Now,"**  it smirks,  **"which person are you going to pick?"**

~~**READER, THE CHOICE IS YOURS.** ~~

~~**WHO WILL BE THE FIRST AND ONLY CHOSEN MEMBER OF EREN'S TEAM?** ~~

~~**A)** **JEAN**~~

~~**B)** **MARCO**~~

~~**C)** **SASHA**~~

~~**D)** **CONNIE**~~

~~**E)** **KRISTA**~~

~~**F)** **HANJI**~~

~~**G)** **LEVI**~~

~~**H)** **ERWIN**~~

~~**PICK ONE.** ~~

**DECISION MADE. CONTINUE TO NEXT CHAPTER.**


	3. OPTION G

**YOU CHOSE: G) LEVI**

**ALL OTHER TEAM CANDIDATES ARE RANDOMLY SELECTED.**

 

The voice pauses for a long, dramatic moment before talking. **“Ymir!”** it calls, **“who are you going to pick?”**

Her eyes scan the group, briefly moving over her companion with a slight hint of regret, before finally landing on the shorter of the two men in boiler suits. Ymir pauses there for a long moment and breathes through her nose and nodding. “You there, blondie?”

Jean looks up to Ymir, his eyebrows furrowing. “Me?”

“Yes you. Who the fuck else would I be talking to.” She huffs and crosses her arms over her chest. “I can tell you know shit… you’re just hidin’ it from me.”

 **“Well Jean, it looks like you’ve been chosen.”** Jean swallows thickly at the sound of the sickly commentator’s voice. **“Why don’t you join your new team-mate.”** He looks to Ymir sharply, then to Marco. Their hands slip apart and with one final glance back, Jean walks towards Ymir and stands by her side. **“Excellent,”** the voice continues, **“and now… Eren. Who are you going to choose?”**

It’s hard knowing that he cannot forthright choose Mikasa or Armin. But Eren feels his eyes drawn to one person in particular. Levi, his arms folded over his chest, stares off into the distance with an out of place nonchalance that’s kind of inspiring to Eren in a way he cannot really describe. Perhaps it is the fact that he looks so unperturbed that strikes Eren as something he’d want on his team, maybe the untouchable nature that surrounds him, the almost rock-like nature of his presence. But all Eren knows it that he is staring at Levi intently, and without thinking for a moment longer he talks. “Him.”

Levi just blinks when Eren points to him and shrugs Erwin’s hand from his shoulder before wordlessly stepping over and standing a good few feet away from Eren. He doesn’t meet Eren’s gaze, and lets the voice talk on and on whilst he stares out over everyone.

His aura is… cold. Like an illness it chills everything, the external heat just an illusion. Dead eyes follow nothing, staring into the darkness. And all of a sudden a wave of uneasiness washes over him. The dark bags under his eyes and Levi's sallow cheeks are a lot more noticeable close up. Eren feels a lot less comfortable with his decision, and suddenly he questions whether it was the best idea to choose him over anyone else.

 **“Excellent. And so now we can pick the others. Ymir, your group’s going to include… Sasha!”** The voice pauses for a long moment. **“Mikasa… Hanji and… Armin! Now isn’t that a nice mix?”** the commentator laughs. **“And that means, Eren, accompanying you will be Connie, Marco, Erwin and of course the lovely Krista.”**

His small group moves towards him. They share confused glances between them—all except Levi—and greet each other quietly and politely. Eren can see Ymir’s group doing the same, and part of him is grateful that at least Mikasa and Armin are together. He’s reasonably sure he can look after himself, but he knows that whatever this is… well, it won’t do any good for Mikasa to have to worry over two people. It's better for all of them this way.

Erwin, the large bulky blond, is the first to smile and offer his hand to Eren. “Nice to meet you,” he grins. Levi snorts and continues to ignore everyone. Eren shakes the hand much larger than his, the movement rustling against his letterman jacket, class of ’83.

“You too… Erwin, right?”

“That’s me. Obviously you’ve been acquainted with Levi already.”

“Fuck off.”

The guy with PLUR written across his shirt steps forward, hand extended with a peace sign on his fingers. Eren isn’t sure what to do, so he mimics the motion with a scowl on his face and tries to copy when the guy switches his fingers from a peace sign to a bent claw with his finger splayed down, to where he twines his fingers with Eren’s in a clenched fist and pushes a string of colourful beads from around his wrist over to Eren’s. It's a strange gesture from the short, shaven-bald man... but it's still a nice one. “I’m Connie by the way,” he smiles, nodding around the group.

The dark haired man in the boiler suit extends his hand to everyone with a bright smile. Even Levi takes it. Eren can see the numbers on his lapel clearly: D-424. “Marco,” he smiles, and his voice seems sweet and sincere.

Finally, the tiny woman with blonde hair and bright blue eyes puts the balaclava in her hand into a back pocket and grins so widely that it seems to split her face. “I’m Krista, nice to meet you all.”

They all stand awkwardly for a few moments, none of them sure what to say or do next. Connie, Marco and Krista look to Eren with a semblance of expectation. Erwin looks over to Levi, a sheen of worry in his blue eyes.

Again, Eren wonders if he made the right choice.

 **“I see everyone’s gotten aquainted… so, who would like to see what you’re all up against on your first round. Now don’t worry, I’ll ease you in slowly,”** the voice is smug. **“Nothing dangerous… yet. Are you ready?”**

But before anyone can answer the lights dim once again and everyone is thrown into darkness. It’s not so shocking this time around, but Eren can feel movement against his face, touches up against his legs and vibrations under his feet. Things are moving, shifting, and it feels strange knowing that this is all going on in front of his face and he cannot see it; like a bad green-screen. 

And when the almost blinding lights rise again they are all standing in the gaping entrance of… what seems to be a maze.

 **“Welcome to The Labyrinth!”** The voice calls out happily. The tension in the room is thick. Eren can almost feel the pulsing vibration of soundless clapping bursting around him. There is nothing there, though.

Instead Eren gawks in wonder at the scene in front of him.

A true labyrinth. The stone walls rise fifty feet up into the air and the whole thing fits impossibly into the already large sound studio. Eren marvels at how it has appeared out of nowhere and even though he knows how big the room is, this seems to fill it full and then some. It seems ridiculous, like a dream, and he cannot help himself when he pinches his leg through his jeans. He feels the bruise, and knows that this is real, that the stone walls floating into the dark distance are really in front of him and not some illusion he's just dreamed up. 

Eren’s team is close to him, and Ymir’s the same way. Everyone’s eyes are trained into the menacing mouth that looms before them, staring into the pitch black and wondering what lies beyond.

 **“Since this is the first round, we’re going to start off simply. There are only two rules. The first is this: whichever team makes it to the centre first wins. That’s it. Whichever team gets their first gets an advantage in the next round.”** Eren can almost feel the commentator smirking slimily. **“The second rule... is that if you want to leave this round, then you lose The Game Show Of Death, and one of my studio guardians will remove you from the game... and after that, who knows what will happen to you!"**  The commentator's laugh is cruel and biting. The innocence is completely gone. **"When the claxon goes, make your way through The Labyrinth and get to the centre as fast as possible. Are you ready?”**

Eren looks around to his group, and they all nod back. Connie smiles brightly at him, and it’s reassuring. He's ready, he's raring to prove himself. To win.

Then the claxon goes off.

Eren sprints to the left as fast as he can and almost crashes with Ymir’s team on the way. They stumble around each other for a few moments, briefly knocking into Mikasa. But after a shove from someone, Eren finds himself spinning on the spot. He trips over his feet quickly, hands grappling to find a wall just as the opposing team fading into the blackness of the labyrinth… and out of the corner of his eye sees that his team has almost split down the middle when it comes to which way to go. He, Marco and Erwin had all gone left whilst Connie, Levi and Krista are heading right, Krista’s hand skimming the wall next to her. They all stop just inside the entrance.

The walls are made of thick bricks almost two meters high and wide. The cracks in between them are sealed almost perfectly except for the odd sprout of moss or dry grass. They look around them, seeing nothing but a long stretch of wall going either way down the corridor with no end. Eren swallows and looks to his split group.

“We should go left,” Erwin concludes quickly. “It means we can keep an eye on the other team’s progress and feed off of their mistakes by avoiding the dud routes they take and get ahead whilst they’re lost.”

“We could do that,” Krista interrupts, “or we could follow the wall around the whole maze. It will take longer to get around but we won’t make many mistakes and we’re certain to turn up in the centre.”

“Well Eren seems to be acting team leader,” Marco shrugs, “so what do you think?”

Eren sighs, taking in all of the options.

This isn't exactly what he wanted. Wasn't it easier for them to just follow him?

He could follow the other team and go for a battle of speed and learn from the other team’s mistakes… he could lead his team the whole way around the maze by following the wall and know that they would certainly end up in the centre… maybe he should just ignore them and follow his gut instinct like he was going to do. After all, he is team leader and they should be listening to him. He’s the one who is heading his team.

Or he could quit and leave through the entrance to the maze he has just run through, the outside more welcoming than the ominous, looming corridors of The Labyrinth that remind him too easily of an endless nightmare. Give up.

So what does he do?

And more importantly, whose judgement, if any, does he trust?

 

~~**READER, THE CHOICE IS YOURS.** ~~

~~**WHICH PLAN OF ACTION DOES HE CHOOSE?** ~~

~~**A)** **ERWIN’S PLAN TO TRAIL THE OTHER TEAM.**~~

~~**B)** **KRISTA’S PLAN TO FOLLOW THE WALL.**~~

~~**C)** **NEITHER. EREN WILL GO ON HIS GUT INSTINCT.**~~

~~**D)** **NONE. HE WILL LEAVE THE LABYRINTH.**~~

**DECISION MADE. CONTINUE TO NEXT CHAPTER.**

 


	4. OPTION A

**YOU CHOSE A) ERWIN’S PLAN TO TRAIL THE OTHER TEAM.**

It is a conundrum. Eren only has a few short seconds to pick, and he feels somewhat torn.

Usually, his personality would dictate him to take control no matter what, be blunt and bolshie and incredibly direct. But this isn’t just him. He’s not just looking out for his own ass now. This is his team: six people forced to work together… even if it is only for a short time. Eren’s actions affect everyone if he fucks up, so why not let those actions be blamed on someone else?

And so he figures that a good option would be to pick. He quickly decides on Erwin’s high-octane, high-danger plan as the most suitable option, knowing that even if the other team finds the centre, Eren’s won’t be far behind… that and, although he would never admit it, he does feel slightly apprehensive of Erwin. He did come here with Levi after all, and the man must be as tough as nails to touch to willingly put his hands on someone as seemingly volatile and unapproachable as Levi.

“We’ll go with Erwin’s idea,” Eren says, “let’s get going before we fall too far behind.”

The team gather themselves up, Erwin looking particularly pleased with himself. They keep a high pace as they jog down the left route they’d seen Ymir’s team take. They stayed silent save for their breathing and footsteps, their bodies dissolving into the dark-fogged air and all eyes diligently searching around them for any signs of the other team. This corridor flows straight forward for a short while before it dramatically turned right. Eren turns of the ball of his foot and sprints around the corner—

And hits a wall. The maze backs around on itself like a snake. But just up ahead and through the fog, Eren can see five gaps in the left wall that indicate another path. But there’s something else. The sound of hushed voices and muffled footsteps come from the centre gap in the wall, just as the point where the fog is almost too thick to see.

Luckily, Sasha’s bright pink tutu skirt shows them all up nicely.

“Stay back” Erwin demands, throwing his arms out to the side and pushing everyone back in the process, “if they see us then they’ll know that we’re following.”

Eren swallows back the urge remind Erwin who’s in charge here. At the back of the group, Levi rolls his eyes and looks ready to gut the man, but just complies for the moment.

Through the thick mist the figures of the other team are just noticeable. Eren’s team holds their breaths as though the effort would make the other team’s talking any louder. It doesn’t. Their words just sound like static, their points and hand gestures almost meaningless. It’s frustrating; they’re right there, easy to pass… but he knows he can’t do it yet. The urge to beat the other team is strong but he keeps telling himself _not yet… not yet!_  Instead he replays Phil Collins’ _In The Air Tonight_ in the back of his mind... it sounds ridiculous, but right then it’s almost perfectly moody.

They watch as the other team talks for a good few minutes, sending a small party of Jean, Sasha and Hanji out to scout the fourth corridor only for them to return thirty seconds later with a loud cry of “It’s a dead end!” courtesy of Hanji.

That leaves the fifth corridor.

Ymir’s group heads down, Erwin deciding to take control and wordlessly point forward to indicate to Eren’s team to follow.

It’s starting to piss Eren off. Who the fuck does this dickbrain think he is, waltzing around like he owns the damn place? He clenches his fists to his sides and as they move forward, Eren makes sure to elbow Erwin in his side and just glare for a long moment. It’s not returned but as Eren looks around the group it almost seems as though Levi smirks.

Marco is the first to slow down about twenty feet before the last turning where the other team has disappeared. “Hold back for a moment. We don’t know how far around they are.”

“I’ll check,” Connie pipes up, shoving his way past Erwin and Eren to take the front. He leads the group for a short way before peeking his head around the corner alone. “We’re good, they just went right.”

“Then let’s head forward and keep moving.”

And suddenly Erwin is leading.

Eren’s moving further and further back, jogging just behind at first, and then slipping further down the line until he’s moving next to Levi. The other man just presses forward without a word, but by the way he periodically glances over to Eren it’s obvious that he notices how much Erwin’s attitude bothers him.

“He’s always doing that,” Levi offers shortly. It’s the first real thing he’s said this entire time, and despite the shortness of the sentence and the weird way he’s dressed… it’s kind of comforting.

“Does he always want to control everything?” Eren whispers back just as they pull up at another corner.

Levi nods. “He thinks he can fix things.”

Their small-talk ends there, but even that seems comfortable. Erwin takes the lead, and every so often Eren turns to Levi and watches as he grimaces… Even Krista looks slightly put off by the tall blond. Despite his method being good, there’s a way in which to tell people to do things—and he certainly hasn’t found it.

They’ve been following the other team for an hour, and Eren’s nerves are frayed. He’s ready to snap. Krista keeps muttering about how they should have gone with her idea, and Connie looks ready to pass out. Marco is the only calm one in the group, taking Erwin’s orders easily and without complaint. The guy’s damn reasonable, and the only calming presence in the group. Levi and Eren formed an unspoken ‘Erwin’s pissing me off’ pact some time ago and that’s the only thing apparently keeping them both sane.

“We’re close.” Erwin states.

“How the fuck do you know that?” Eren bites back.

“I just do.”

“That’s not helpful,” Krista huffs. She uses her balaclava to wipe the sweat from her forehead. “If we’d done it my way, at least we’d be making progress. This is complete bull.”

“Well, what’s done is done now.” Erwin sighs.

Eren wants to punch Erwin so, so badly. But around the corner the other group are discussing where to go next, all slightly grouchy and argumentative, with Ymir and Jean coming to odds more often than not. Connie fidgets in his crouched position.

They are all hiding, hoping that even though the strange, dark fog has thinned the other team won’t notice. Being quiet and staying still aren’t exactly Eren’s strong suits. With everything—his pent-up anger, his growing hate for Erwin—he’s becoming increasingly ready to start a fight. He’s just waiting for that one last thread to be pulled… and it comes easily.

“Eren, you go check ahead.” Erwin coolly directs.

Eren huffs. “How about you go fucking check ahead,” he hisses violently, “and I’ll take over. You’re doing a crap job.”

“I got us this far,” Erwin spits back.

“No, _they_  got us this far.” Eren’s voice is rising. “All we’ve done is follow them and get fucking lost in the process.”

“This is a damn maze. What else is supposed to happen, follow the signposts to the centre?!” Erwin spins on his heel to face Eren. “When you put me in charge—“

“I never fucking put anyone in charge, shitbag!” Eren shouts. “I was just using your fucking idea, and I know now that it was a bad decision. Now we’re completely lost and you’re acting like we should all be schmoozing up to you!”

“Dude, schmoozing sounds so ei—“

“I told you two we should have followed the wall!”

Eren glares at Krista. “I shouldn’t have fucking listened to any of you!” he shouts.

“Eren’s right Erwin. You did a really shit job.” Levi stares down the maze’s corridors listlessly.

“Uh, Eren…” Marco interrupts…

And he spins his head. Ymir’s group stand over his own, most of them in shock, but one face in particular filled with anger.

“You’ve been following us?!” Ymir screams. Her fist comes flying towards Eren’s face. At the last moment he tries to dodge and the hit catches his left ear. It burns, but he regains his posture, standing from his crouched position and returns the favour. He catches her shoulder and Ymir reels back. Her foot digs into the floor and she’s flying again, growling when he elbow pulls back like a spring and—

No punch lands. Instead Eren feels arms wrap under his own and dragging him backwards and away the punch. It's Levi. Marco rushes between the two in panic, arms outstretched… a human barrier. Mikasa holds Ymir’s shoulder and looks to Eren with a hint of shame.

“Let me fucking get at him!” She screams, growling through her teeth. “I’ll fucking… I’m gonna rip him the fuck up.”

“Calm down,” Armin interjects. “We can work this out.”

“He’s right,” Marco says, and begins to lower his arms, “we can talk this out rationally.” He turns to the other group. “We decided to follow you, but it seems like you’re lost.”

“You’re right, we’re completely stuck.” Jean huffs.

“Did Ymir not use the wall trick?” Krista asks, and Ymir slams her palm against her head, pulling herself from Mikasa’s grip.

“I fucking forgot about that. Damn it, we’d be there by now.”

“Well can we do that now?” Sasha asks, but Krista just shrugs.

“Only if we go back to the start, although I think we’re a bit lost to do that now.”

And then suddenly a bright green jacket and a messy pile of hair bounds around the corner… and Levi sighs, his arms slowly untangling from around Eren’s. Hanji bounds around from where she had just been searching and lands by the group. “Did you say you guys want to go back to the start?” she asks.

“We think so,” Erwin says before turning to the group. “Hanji has an eidetic memory, she can take us back.”

“But then we’ve wasted all that time,” Jean groans. “We should just keep going, split up again.”

“Or work together,” Marco adds with a smile.

“Well I want to go back and start again,” Sasha starts. “We can, like, flip a coin or something and see who goes left and who goes right... it’s even then, right?”

Connie, Marco, Mikasa and Hanji nod.

“Or we split now and carry on,” Jean pushes. Most of the rest shrug. Levi seems indifferent.

But Eren’s not sure. He wants to get this damn thing over and done with… but he also really, re _ally_ wants to prove Erwin wrong, show him up. He’s just not sure if he can do that without having a fresh start.

So… what does Eren choose?

 

~~**READER, THE CHOICE IS YOURS.** ~~

~~**WILL EREN:** ~~

~~**A)** **WANT TO GO BACK TO THE START OF THE MAZE**~~

~~**B)** **CARRY ON FROM WHERE HE IS NOW**~~

~~**C)** **LEAVE THE GAME SHOW OF DEATH**~~

**DECISION MADE. CONTINUE TO NEXT CHAPTER.**


	5. OPTION B.

**YOU CHOSE B) CARRY ON FROM WHERE HE IS NOW**

“I’m not going back to the fucking start.” Eren almost instantly pushes his way past the group, starting down the path in front of him. His arms swing with purpose, anger fuelling the desire to keep going as he comes close to jogging away from both his team and the Ymir’s. “We’re going now… hurry up already!”

“Jeez Mr. Worrywart. No need to get so stress,” Connie sighs, waving a final goodbye to Sasha and following. The rest of his team stick behind for a short while, and just before he decides that a corner just to the left is where he wants to go next, Eren turns around, rolls his sleeves up and calls to them.

“Are you gonna come with or just stand around like a bunch of dipsticks?”

Marco, Levi and Krista move, although she looks slightly put-off by Eren. Erwin stays where he stands for a little while before walking with purpose to stand next to Eren.

As a group, and in silence, they turn the corner, and Ymir’s team dissolves from their vision. Eren is surprised to see that the path ahead is straight and then immediately turns left again before giving them a definite right entrance and a dead end further on. They all move right, unspeaking. They cannot see or hear the other group, so Eren has no clue what they’re doing, but all he knows it that he has to keep going. Going forward means that he’ll get closer eventually. Going back is no option, starting over is not option. He has to take control, lead his team show any potential usurpers that he is the one they should be listening to.

It feels for a little while as though they’re walking around in circles, Eren’s temper rising with every step. Erwin still stands next to him, wordlessly taking second in command. It’s bothersome, and pretty annoying… but he can deal with it. As long as he doesn’t mess this up then fine! He doesn’t want an apology, he just wants the man to realise that Eren doesn’t want help… and that he should have never taken it in the first place. All he wants is to fucking finish this maze and get out. But it’s taking time. Every corner either ends in a dead end or another turn… it’s endless, sprawling. It feels like just seconds and an infinity all at once. Annoyance bubbles inside of him

“This is bogus,” he growls. Connie just laughs at him, Marco smiling. They’re the only thing stopping Eren from completely falling off of the rails; they’re calm and have their heads screwed on… Kirsta too, but he’s kind of annoyed with her right now. He’s not quite sure what for, but her sweet face and big blue eyes are just too angelic for her to not be hiding something.

“You talk weird man,” Connie smirks and carries on talking his mouth off, “like my brother. He’s got this real eighties vibe on him… he’s kind of weird like that, a few years behind.”

Eren glances around in confusion. “What d’you mean, eighties vibe?” He questions. “This is the eighties... nineteen eighty-four.”

“Wait, what are you talking about?” Connie scoffs. “It’s ninety-seven.”

“Actually, it’s two thousand and nine,” Erwin states, glaring at Eren.

“Not it’s not.” Eren’s voice rises, frustration growing. “It’s June fifth, nineteen eighty-four. You’re all messing with me.”

“Who’s the current American president?” Erwin asks.

Eren glares hard at him, eyebrows low. “Reagan,” he stats harshly.

“Wrong.” Erwin keeps his eyes forward. The group dodge through another gap in the shortening walls.

“I make it twenty fourteen,” Marco breathes, “the fourteenth of May. That’s the day the information pack I got said I’d be going in here anyway… although it did say that time in here is kind more warped than normal. And Obama’s president.”

“But that doesn’t make any sense!” Eren shouts. “'Cause I'm totally sure that I stumbled in her like, just a few hours ago. And if I'd been here for over thirty years, then I'd be old, and I'm not! I look exactly the same!"

“So that’s why my client’s interested in it,” Krista smiles, “he thinks it can slow ageing.”

“Stop fucking with me!” Eren growls, hitting his hands to his head. “You’re doing this on purpose to mess my head!”

“Oi!” Levi shouts, impatience just tinting his call. Everyone turns to him, ten feet behind and standing at another gap in the wall. His arms are folded and he looks stupidly pale, skin sheened with a light blue tinge and a layer of perspiration. He audibly gulps, his voice sounding hoarse and dry. “You idiots missed something.”

They all move back to where Levi is standing… and see that it leads to a small room with no other exits or entrances. It’s completely empty, and has a low roof on top. The walls too are cleaner, and the grass that had been growing out of it is gone, the lines where the bricks had been placed together smoothed to perfection as though it were all one solid and carved lump.

“Is… is this it?” Marco ventures. They move inside, stare up at the ceiling and the walls.

This has to be it, right? There’s nowhere else it could be.

And they’re the first ones there.

But before anyone can answer Marco, the walls begin to move around in blocks, falling away from each other and floating wherever they please. It is as though they weigh nothing. Eren gawks as the ceiling above them in the small box room floats into the air and disappears. And there they all are, standing on the round stage that they had all started on with the other team on the other side as though they too had been close and the idea of a large labyrinthine maze is just an illusion. It seems like an illusion.

 **“Congratulations, we have a winner!”** The commentator booms, laughing and clapping wherever it may be. **“Well done to Eren’s team for beating The Labyrinth in an outstanding time of twelve hours and fifteen minutes.”**

“But we were only in there for a few hours!” Hanji whines up to the voice. “I wanted to find the centre too!”

Suddenly, Marco’s comment that time is strange in here makes sense. There is not defined time, and they cannot measure it. It could be years before he gets out, maybe even decades. Then again, if he has been in here as long as the others suggest…

 **“Well well well, I must say that for a moment I thought we were going to have a little fight on our hands. I’m glad that the studio guardians didn’t have to get involved. That would be messy. But, as we agreed, congratulations to Eren, Levi, Krista, Erwin, Connie and Marco for your win, and to celebrate… well, I have a surprise for you.”** The voice trails off and seems to swim through the air before finally landing beside Eren’s left ear. He flinches, as does everyone else in the team. But the voice is almost inaudible as it whispers. **“Your prize is to know what is coming up in the future.”**

Eren swallows the nerves away. The commentator continues.

**“I can tell you that in the next few rounds, there is an extreme element of danger. Many people have died here… most of them from the team that does not win the first round. Dying here is not uncommon, and so now, your prize is this; the way to win The Game Show Of Death. Let go of your humanity. Forget the idea of being friends, or lovers… forget brothers and sisters. You stand alone now—in a team, but alone. Working for someone is no longer an option. Working together comes only at the cost of you surviving or dying.**

**“In this game, your choice of order is paramount; pick the right order in which to go and this whole thing will be as easy as pie. But get it wrong, and you could all go falling. Put someone where they don’t want to be put, and they could be an enemy to you if they survive.”** The voice chuckles, and then it floats away again, growing louder as it spreads and dissipates through the air. **“The problem is, which spot is the one that will leave you the safest… not just inside the next challenge, but after it too?”**

And with that the voice disappears. The room rumbles, black smoke rising against the blinding lights. One challenge is over, but another is growing from the ground like a nightmare. There is a gleam of metal, the sound of heavy swinging, the scratch of something evil ripping through air and anything that gets in its way. Bone-crunching, heavy wood… whip-quick arrows.

This is an assault course.

Laid out in front of the twelve people is a jagged mess of ripping teeth, slamming walls and falling rocks. A swinging ball of rough metal rushes past, and just beyond that a set of jaws almost like a bear trap slam shut and rip open whenever they feel like it… and although Eren cannot see much further than the debris clattering to the earth just beyond the tearing teeth, he can hear the whi-pish of something fast, the crack of something painful… and the deadly swipe of something horrific. Just out of his view.

 **“Team leaders!”** The commentator calls with renewed vigour in its voice, **“Your job is to get your team through here as complete as possible. The winning team is the one with the fastest time. However, there are penalities. Any minor injuries such as bruising or light cuts incur a penalty of thirty seconds. Any major damage such as broken bones, loss of limbs, or unconsciousness means you gain one minute of extra time. And finally death will add on another five minutes to your total. The rules are this: no purposefully breaking anything, no trying to climb around obstacles, no moving on before the contestant before you either makes it or has to pull out… and if you need to quit, then you automatically forfeit The Game Show Of Death, and you lose.**

**“Now, Ymir, Eren. Pick your team’s running order carefully. Whoever wins this round will gain a special prize at the end… one that may be crucial to winning the ultimate prize! Choose wisely!”**

~~**READER, THE CHOICE IS YOURS.** ~~

~~**HERE IS A LIST OF EREN’S TEAM MATES** ~~

~~**A)** **EREN**~~

~~**B)** **LEVI**~~

~~**C)** **KRISTA**~~

~~**D)** **ERWIN**~~

~~**E)** **CONNIE**~~

~~**F)** **MARCO**~~

~~**CHOOSE THE ORDER IN WHICH HE AND HIS TEAM MATES WILL PLAY FROM 1 TO 6; 1 GOING FIRST AND 6 GOING LAST.** ~~

~~**OR** ~~

~~**G)** **QUIT THE GAME SHOW OF DEATH**~~

 

**DECISION MADE. CONTINUE TO NEXT CHAPTER.**


	6. ORDER A, C, F, E, D, B

**YOU CHOSE TO PLACE EREN’S TEAM IN THIS ORDER:**

**1)** **Eren**

 **2)** **Krista**

 **3)** **Marco**

 **4)** **Connie**

 **5)** **Erwin**

 **6)** **Levi**

 

Levi is the first to pipe up, grabbing Eren by his arm and dragging him close. Their noses come close to brushing as Levi pulls Eren down so he can whisper harshly. “Do you realise that whoever goes first is most likely to get hurt?”

Eren nods. “I know, that’s why I’m taking lead.”

“You’re an idiot.”  Levi scoffs. Erwin turns to listen in to their conversation.

“It’s dangerous, yeah… but I’m willing to give it a go, try it out and all that. I figured…” Eren gently pulls his arm from Levi’s grip, “that you’re kind of stuck with me… and I chose you Levi. So it’s my duty to keep you safe, to lead.” He smiles at the rest of his team. Even Erwin. “So I’m going to act like a team leader and show you what to do, cheer you on from the other side.”

“And what about the rest of us?” Krista asked. Eren thinks for a moment before answering.

“I’m not too sure… but I think, I think you’re hiding something, and I was just wondering what it was.” He looks Krista in the eye, and under his gaze she sighs and gives up.

“Ymir and I are… what you’d probably call mercenaries. Or, well, ex-mercenaries. We tend to do less dangerous jobs now, like fetch and retrieve, or body-guarding.” Krista’s eyes fall. “We came here after a pay-off. The man wanted this place’s core… although now I’m not sure that we’re going to find it. We’re both a bit stuck playing the game this place has set.”

“So you’re pretty, like, fit then?” Connie asks.

Krista nods. “I’m athletic. Not as much as Ymir but I’m still capable. This obstacle course doesn’t mean much to me… I’ve been through worse.”

Eren looks her over once. “Well then, Krista, if you don’t mind then I want you to go after me.” He turns to look at Marco. “You too. You’ve said bits that I don’t get.”

“I’m afraid it’s a lot harder to explain,” Marco chuckles weakly. He rolls up the sleeves of his boiler suit. On his wrists are two thick metal bands, identical to the ones on Jean’s wrists. “They’re GPS trackers.”

“What?” Eren asks.

“GPS,” Erwin adds, “global positioning system. It’s a satellite navigation system that can locate the position of a receiver like Marco’s wrist bands anywhere in the world.”

Marco nods, stepping towards Eren and rolling his sleeves down. “I used to work for a division of the government that studied objects that weren’t of this world. There was an incident and….my clearance was dropped. But because of the nature of my previous work they couldn’t let me go. It was either on the spot execution or become a test subject. So, for a while I was used as a, well, a host. That’s where I met Jean.” He stops and smiles for a moment. “But the bands are for tracking us when we’re here. If I die then it’s likely that they may be able to track what happens to me afterwards. As for being able to do this… maybe. I’ve had military training, but that was some time ago.”

“So you can go third?”

“Sure.”

“I’ll go next if you want,” Connie pipes up. “I’ve got no military training, but I can move.”

“Great. That just leaves Levi and Erwin.”

The group turns to the two men. Erwin and Levi look at each other, but it’s Levi that speaks first.

“Don’t worry about me. Go before.”

“But what happens if—“

“Then you need to get out. I’ll be okay.”

Everyone is silent for a moment… and then, perhaps a moment too soon, Eren opens his mouth. “So… Erwin’s fifth.”

“And I’m last.” Levi confirms.

“And you’re okay with that?” Eren asks. Levi just nods. “So it’s decided then.”

 **“Have both teams finished deliberating?”** The voice asks in an excited tone. It waits for no reply before answering itself. **“Excellent! And so we can begin!”**  The room lights up further, and the whole course becomes clear.

It’s a jumbled mess of sharp metal and heavy objects far more dangerous than anything Eren has seen before. Fear wells in his chest, and out of instinct he looks to Armin.

He’s shaking like a leaf, and second in line just behind Sasha. But before he can do anything, the commentator is counting down from three.

And then the claxon goes.

Eren barely feels his feet as they run full pelt towards the first obstacle. A swinging ball of pure, shining iron whooshes past. Eren halts before it, trying to time the move past right, but after only one swing he decides that it’s enough and runs. Sasha is just behind, dodging before the wrecking ball has completely finished swinging and practically dancing as the runs towards the next obstacle.

Clattering jaws, three in a row, snap open and shut out of sync or reason. Eren decides that he cannot think whilst doing this, and so just runs. _Snap!_ The jaws behind him rip into the air just behind his last flailing leg. The teeth underneath him almost shake with the anticipation of their next strike, but he is over the third set before the last two eat the air in unison.

Somewhere, he hears a scream. It’s loud, but not enough to drive him out of his focus.

Get to the end, he thinks over and over. Get to the end!

He races through the falling rocks, one catching his shoulder with little damage other than a sharp pain and then a dull throb. Eren ignores it in favour of trying to figure out the arrows that are slung in front of his face. They’re timed, he notices, and so he waits until the final one disappears into a hole on the other side and runs for his life, breath heaving, legs burning. Sasha is no longer running beside him.

And then, before he even realises he can see a red flag in the distance.

And Eren runs.

It’s so quick that he cannot quite see what he manages to pass through on sheer luck, but when he looks back he sees a line of sharp blades swinging into each other like a unified sword fight, and two plates crashing into each other with a loud and horrific _slam!_

 **“Go, Krista, go!”** The commentator calls. But then it pauses for a moment. **“Ymir’s team, five minute penalty. Armin’s up!”**

He hears his friend scream. They’ve been told the meaning for that penalty.

Death. Sasha’s dead.

Eren does not know her, but now she’s gone. The harsh blades and bruising stone is nothing compared to the way his heart feels as though it is being squeezed in his chest, the horrible feeling of his throat becoming drier and drier as it closes to the thought of her losing her life just a few meters away from where Eren had stood only moments before. Tears fill his eyes, fall down his cheeks.

And he screams. His screams mix with incomprehensible words. Sometimes he calls Armin’s name, hurrying him on. Then he calls for Krista and when she turns up through his blurred tears, for Marco.

This is not what he thought it would be. Armin stumbles out of the final obstacle with blood in his blond hair and bruises on his cheek. He limps slightly… but he is safe. They run for each other without thinking, Armin immediately shaking in Eren’s arms. It’s horrible… traumatic. The life has left his friend within moments.

Although that may not be helped by the fact that the blood in Armin’s hair may not be his. When Ymir turns up with blood on her hands from no particular source, the theory is confirmed.

Marco turns up, eyes wide and out of breath. He immediately calls out for Jean but is only answered with the sight of Mikasa.

“He’s after me,” she says. Her breath is gone, and she is pale, but she immediately pulls Armin into her arms and hushes his sobs, looking with sympathy to Eren.

Everyone listens to the sounds of metal, and a distant grunt of panic coming from Ymir’s team’s side of the course. Marco listens in intently, but is cut short.

“Fucking go Connie!” Krista flinches at the sound of Levi shouting gruffly on the other side of the assault course.

“Do you think he’ll run?” Ymir asks. Krista shrugs.

“Ow. Fuck!” Marco rushes over to the end of the course when he hears Jean curse in pain. He limps out of the final obstacle, right leg bleeding profusely down his calf and onto the floor, the red pooling and staining the leg of the boiler suit and Jean’s boots. Marco immediately rushes up and grabs Jean by the blue cloth of his clothes before landing a kiss on his lips… and then smacking him over the shoulder.

“Don’t do that to me you idiot! I thought you’d died!”

“Yeah, well, takes a bit more than that to get rid of me.”

But their moment is broken by a small, sobbing body stepping out of the mess of knives. Connie stands with an arrow in his left arm, broken halfway down, a bleeding lip and a right hand that appears to be almost completely crushed, bone sticking out of joints and fingernails all but popped off by pressure. His eyes are red and streaming thickly, breath coming in pants and rasps. He stumbles towards Ymir, lopsided steps growing fasts with every rolling breath he takes.

“You bitch!” He shrieks. His clenched fist flies towards her, but she steps out of the way and lets him fall to the floor where Connie just sobs. They watch as he sinks to the floor, hands hitting the ground enough for the already damaged one to bruise and bleed. His breath is choked, but Ymir watches him without empathy or worry. Her eyes remain impassive. Through his tears, Connie talks. “Y-you… you fucking bitch! Why did you let her—“

He breaks off with a desperate wail of pain. Ymir receives a harsh stare from Krista, who walks over to Connie and carefully yet soothingly rubs his back. His sobbing continues, and to Eren it feels a world away from the man who had offered the beads around his wrist to him what only seemed like a few minutes ago.

That’s when Hanji lollops through with a smile on her face, closely followed by an out of breath Erwin. He immediately swings himself around and cups his hands over his mouth. “Go Levi!” He screams.

Only Erwin and Eren wait and take notice. Everyone else is either comforting or being comforted, with the exception of Hanji who appears to be completely off of her rocker, twirling around like a lunatic and giggling. It must be two minutes before Eren can catch any sight of Levi. The first thing he sees is him holding onto one of the walls just past the shooting arrows—

Before he collapses to the floor.

“Levi!” Erwin screams, and rushes forward towards the rows of duelling blades… just in time for his fingers of his left hand to fall between the swing.

With a wet thump and a gurgling scream, three of Erwin’s fingers splatter to the floor around his feet. He pulls the hand back into his chest, crying out just enough for Hanji to stop and rush over. She grabs his shoulder and pulls him back. He whines against her grasp. “Let me go!” he cries, thrashing, blood flying, “I need to get to him!”

Eren stands, almost paralysed.

The world seems to slow, and for a moment he can think.

He can see Erwin breaking away from Hanji’s grip, stumbling towards the blades just as they pull away from each other. He can see Levi, hunched over and… what appears to be dry-heaving, eyes watering. He sees the terror in Erwin’s hectic stare, the absolute uncontrollable danger that has suddenly manifested with his pain. And Eren knows that his action may have a dire affect. Would this mean that he may have broken a rule? Would helping Levi at all mean that Levi’s chance of leaving this place will completely disappear? But is this a good idea; letting someone so in pain, so crazy with helplessness try and rescue someone as equally incapable?

What happens to Eren if he decides to help? What would happen to Armin and Mikasa if he was gone?

But most importantly, what is best… for everyone?

 

~~**READER, THE CHOICE IS YOURS.** ~~

~~**DOES EREN:** ~~

~~**A)** **LET ERWIN RESCUE LEVI**~~

~~**B)** **REPLACE ERWIN IN RESCUING LEVI**~~

~~**C)** **LEAVE LEVI TO FEND FOR HIMSELF**~~

~~**OR** ~~

~~**D)** **QUIT THE GAME SHOW OF DEATH**~~

 

**DECISION MADE. CONTINUE TO NEXT CHAPTER.**


	7. OPTION B

**YOU CHOSE B) REPLACE ERWIN IN RESCUING LEVI**

And then everything focuses. The screaming becomes clear, the crying more sharp with every step. Eren doesn’t think—he never does. He just steps then steps again and again and again until his feet bound in a merciless pace towards Erwin, towards the heavier thicker body rushing head-long into the blades to rescue Levi.

But that is not his job. It’s Eren’s. He chose Levi, picked him with his own mind to be on his team… because something inside him trusts the man he has never met. Something in him wants this person to survive. And so his arms swing heavily by his side, a catapult of speed and power ready to prove that he can stick up for what is his… to prove that the trust of his team mates is worth more than just a game.

He doesn’t want another death… even if it means putting himself in danger.

Eren does not hear Mikasa scream his name as he rams his shoulder into Erwin’s side. Erwin grunts, puffing out all of the air in his lungs before collapsing sideways onto the floor, his fingers bleeding profusely band his body scattered. But it is ignored. Eren keeps going. He runs, his legs burning, shoulder straining with every movement. The blades open once more and without thinking he runs through them. He feels the bitter air of their movement swing past his leg, barely missing. He scrapes through.

Then the slam of concrete in front of him pulls him back. He was just about to run. He was just about to step there.

And if he had… he would have been crushed.

Eren gulps, recomposing himself and flinching when the slabs kiss together violently before ripping apart once more.

He runs for his life, toward Levi, towards where he can see a pool of vomit beneath the other man’s head. Without thinking he grabs Levi’s shoulders harshly and tugs him up. Levi is grey, his breath drawn and ragged. He looks terrible. But apart from his gaunt and ill appearance he seems untouched… luckily. Eren cannot figure out why, and when he reaches under Levi’s arm to slap his face lightly to bring him back into a semblance of consciousness.

“Levi come on,” he pleads, “we need to work together here.”

“Y’ sh’d’ve… pu’ me down.” Levi breathes out his words with barely an ounce of energy. They come with minimum effort, but rightly. Levi looks foul.

Eren ignores him, awkwardly shuffling himself so that he can try to get Levi to climb onto his back. “Just hold on… I’m not leaving you here.”

“Eren… go.”

“No!” Eren cries. “I’m not having someone die on my watch. So fucking get on my back before I drag you to the end.” Levi doesn’t reply. Instead he shakily stands on his legs, mouth opening as he gags on nothing, and shakily grabs on to Eren’s shoulders and weakly jumps just as Eren shrinks himself down.

His grip is weak, fingers only latching onto Eren’s jacket and nothing more. But Eren tugs his arms under Levi’s legs and holds them to his sides tightly. Levi is not light, but Eren can manage. He knows that he just has to time this right…

The problem lies in his timing.

He turns around and looks back to the slamming slabs, crushing panes that are ready to squish the two men between them like  a fly to   a wall. The rock and the hard place, as it were. It’s a pain, especially when the timing is never quite right. It just depends from hit to hit how long the gap will be, and Eren has been lucky twice. Third time no longer has any appeal. But just beyond the penultimate obstacle and beyond stands Hanji, holding Erwin to her side and looking between the fingers covered in a discarded blue cardigan and to where Eren stands. Mikasa stands next to her and clinging onto her, Armin.

And Eren knows that he has to get back. Even if it is the last thing he does.

With the grind of the opening blocks Eren runs without thinking. The space between the start and the end is just long enough for him to worry. He picks up his speed, urged on by Levi’s legs squeezing into his sides as though he were encouraging him forward or pushing him away.  Eren takes it as a sign to run faster and get out.

But it does not happen before the sound of grumbling rock starts to make the bottom of the two slabs quiver.

Eren has never experienced pain quite so intense than this. His foot explodes with unimaginable heat, the nerves feeling as though they have been plunged into acid, or boiling water, bubbling oil… it’s unimaginable. The skin blisters and breaks with the pressure, bones pulverised, flesh becoming nothing more than liquid. It feels as though everything became heavy and light all at once. Eren cannot breath. He cannot hear. The calls of Mikasa screaming his name is nothing compared to the white noise that rattles in his mind--- simply from the pain. There is nothing else.

He stumbles forward, Levi making his weight all the heavier. Together they crash on the floor, Eren’s shattered right foot sliding out of the slabs of concrete. Levi rolls off of his back and onto the floor.

“Can you hear me, Eren?” His voice quakes as he asks the question, sickness and worry not concrete but distantly present. “Shit,” he repeats, cussing over Eren’s shaking body. “Okay… okay we’re getting out of this,” Levi decides. He groans and feels a wave of nausea rush through him as he picks up Eren’s almost dead weight. Eren puffs, gargles out in pain. But he latches his arm around Levi’s neck and tries to put his foot on the ground around the shock of the pain and the shooting blast his crushed foot lances up his leg and into his hip.

All that is left are the blades. They swing before the pair, both damaged, both quaking from sickness, but still ready to slice and kill before even giving them a change to survive.

Eren drags himself from pain just for this last push. They need to make it. They have to. He needs to, there’s not leaving this, no stopping when he needs to know that Mikasa is safe… that Armin is safe. He needs to live; for them and for himself.

And yet Eren’s eyes want so desperately to close.  They lid over. His vision blurs. The blades swing open and he feels as though he is floating through them, ready for them to snap shut on him and let the pain go. Eren sees dark smoke fill the edges of his vision, the hand clasping around his waist loosen and fall away until he can feel himself fall.

Eren hits the floor, and he is out cold.

 

**OPTION REDUNDANT.**


	8. NO OPTION.

**DECISION UNNECESSARY.**

**“Round three,”** the commentator calls. Its voice circles the stage where Eren and Levi lie side by side, unconscious. One lies there in a shallow sleep, the other… none of them are quite sure. Between the shaking and the makeshift nature of their work since the pair stumbled out of the course and Ymir’s team were announced the winners there is not a person who is sure that this sleep will be the last one, or indeed if the pain can be staved off.

Eren’s breath is ragged, his face unnaturally pale, and what remains of his right foot in a pile a few feet away from his body. It is a mixture of pulverised bone and liquid flesh. His leg ends in a stump covered in blue fabric. Mikasa clings to his right hand with an unnatural force. The other lies open, fingers brushing against Levi’s in a mutual and unconscious conversation. The knife that had been in Levi’s right boot bleeds from Hanji’s hand, and Marco’s boiler suit is torn, a strip of the top half used as a belt for the bottom and the white shirt underneath replaces what has been used to stitch Eren’s leg and bandage it over.  

Connie’s gone.

They’re not sure where to, but after he emerged something seemed to snap. He had ripped the beads from around his wrists, his neck, and climbed off of the stage and into the darkness beyond. They haven’t seen him since. They presume that he is still alive, although they cannot be sure.

The only person in the room that had maintained their composure is Ymir. Krista is broken for the both of them. Armin has not stopped crying, And Jean and Erwin hang back respectfully.

They all watch as Levi comes back to consciousness and dry heaves before coughing. Hanji wipes the knife in her hand against her jeans and steps forward. “How’re you feeling?”

Levi spits onto the floor next to him. “Like shit.” His eyes stay to the ground. “I’ll live.” And that is when he looks next to him, and sees Eren lying on his back, blood soaking the floor around him. “Shit,” Levi hisses.

Mikasa glares yet says nothing. Her feelings pour out in the way she looks over Eren, the pulsing squeeze of her hand in Eren’s… she hates that this has happened for a stranger. She hates that some unknown person has damaged him forever. To her it is heart breaking for him to be like this.  And even though he chose to do it, Levi is the reason why. It breaks her, but she says nothing.

 **“Oh, ladies and gentlemen… if you could please move away from Eren.”** Everyone looks to the ceiling, following the voice as it seems to fly overhead. From the darkness, shadows grow and stretch, reaching out for Mikasa and pulling her away from Eren with persistent fingers. She slips over the floor, letting go of Eren’s hand. They watch it drop to the floor, and then just as the shadows unwrap themselves from Mikasa, they twirl and seem to stand like ghosts and lift Eren up into the air.

“Let him go!” Mikasa shouts, her abused voice hoarse. Krista places a firm hand on her shoulder and holds her back and down as the shadows lift Eren.

 **“He’s alive,”** the commentator seems to smirk, **“but barely…. And yet this gives us a perfect opportunity to play another round as well as perhaps giving the chance to save a life. This time, it’s a very short game of would you rather. There will be no teams… and the only rule is that you have to choose one of the two options.”**

And the lights dip. They expect it by now, but the darkness is no less terrifying. It seems thick and unnatural, their eyes unable to adjust to what seems to be both infinite and close all at once. Darkness has never seemed so closed in as in that moment. It chokes and holds every breath like a boa constrictor. The darkness takes whatever it is given and dissolves it into nothing.

Things rush around their heads too quickly for any of them to quite process what it is. The objects barely miss faces, heads, chests and necks.  Something clatters in front of Levi and he reaches forward with a shaking hand, grasping something cold and distinctive. A gun.

_CHI-CHI-CHI-CHI-CHI-CHI-CHI_

The lights go up, and against a wall at one end of the stage are five targets, each with a person inside.

The first one is Eren, groaning as he comes to consciousness.

The second is Connie, shaking his limbs against the ties and screaming. His eyes are red and his face is gleaming with sweat and tears and God knows what else. Levi notices that his fingernails are bleeding and his neck is covered in scratches.

And then the last three.

One is the tall boy that had left with the two others right at the start. His head lulls to one side and his eyes are almost hazy.

The fourth is the blond boy who turns to try and shout his friend into consciousness through the rag in his mouth.

The fifth is Erwin. He stands perfectly still, yet his blue eyes blaze with horror and he stares as Levi with remorse.

**“Levi. You have been given a gun. But… you are only allowed to use it on whoever we choose you to. If you fail to do that then you will forfeit your place in The Game Show Of Death and your turn will be given to another person at random.”**

Levi swings his body around to look at the group standing behind him. Hanji’s eyes are wide and brimming with tears he has never seen in there before. And then there are Eren’s friends, hanging on to each other for what seems like their lives. The others, too, look between them and Levi with sadness and a terrible scent of fright. He takes a deep, shuddering breath and looks back to the five people. He knows that they will not be kind with him.

**“Levi… would you rather kill Erwin, the man that has saved you from yourself more than once, or Eren; the boy who gave his body to preserve two more?”**

~~**READER, THE CHOICE IS YOURS.** ~~

~~**WOULD YOU RATHER:** ~~

~~**A)** **SAVE EREN**~~

~~**B)** **SAVE ERWIN**~~

~~**OR** ~~

~~**C)** **QUIT THE GAME SHOW OF DEATH**~~

 

**DECISION MADE. CONTINUE TO NEXT CHAPTER.**


	9. OPTION A

**YOU CHOSE A) SAVE EREN**

 

Levi holds the gun in his right hand. His arm shakes, fingers wrapping around the cold metal. His whole body trembles, the aftermath of illness a bad taste on his tongue, a swirl in his stomach. This is his own fault, Levi knows it, but the blame cannot lie with him. It’s been there for too long and he’s sick of it. He’s sick of feeling like a problem.

And so when he’s given the opportunity to pick between obligation and choice, he knows which he prefers.

“Levi,” Hanji whispers the best she can but her voice is still loud, “don’t do it.”

He looks back over his shoulder at her. “Do what?” he asks. The innocence he wants to put into his words seem bitter.

Hanji audibly gulps and takes a step forward. Levi moves the same distance away from her. “Don’t do anything you’d regret.”

“It’s too late for that,” Levi bites. “Ten years too late.”

“You know what I mean!” She shouts, her arms flailing as she paces towards Levi. “Choose the option that you can live with.”

Levi spins on his heel. Haji flails back in surprise, watching with an outstretched arm as Levi lifts the gun slowly towards his own head and pulls back the safety. The barrel shakes against his temple.

“Levi,” Hanji coos, “don’t.”

And in that moment he flicks the gun and points it to Erwin. Hanji screams, covering her mouth with her hands. Levi laughs, short and hard.

“That’s the difference,” He nods slowly. “I get it now.” He moves the gun back down to his side and stares at Hanji. His eyes glint with something powerful, dangerous. It’s always been there, ever since the two first met. But now it seems to have fulfilled its full potential, and Hanji has never seen him look quite like this; broken, scared, and wild. His gaze does not break, eyelids never closing. He stares like a rabid animal towards Hanji without a hint of remorse but one thousand yards worth of intelligence. “You don’t care if I die,” Levi breathes out.

“No, no no of course I care!” Hanji breaks. The tears that were brimming in her eyes fall. “Do you think that I do what I do to make sure you die? It’s so that you don’t, Levi.”

“But that’s just it, isn’t it? I’m not living. I’m surviving.”

“Is that not better than dying?” Hanji asks.

Levi doesn’t answer. He looks away from Hanji and quickly over to Eren’s friends, the pair crying. Then, he takes a few steps towards the boy. The target where he has been tied lets him hang limply from the wall, his head sagging forward. Levi brushes the hair back from over the face of the kid that has saved him, and just knows.

“I say I’ll live,” Levi croaks, his words directed at Hanji, “but I don’t. You’re doing it for me. You both are.” He moves towards Erwin, looking to Hanji quickly. He loosely points the gun at Erwin. “I owe him a lot.”

Hanji bites back a sob. “You do,” she nods, her lips pursed tightly, “you owe him everything… but you definitely owe him his own life.”

 “I don’t want to kill Eren,” Levi snaps. “So then who do I kill, Hanji?!” Levi pulls the gun back up to his own head, standing in front of Erwin. He won’t let the tears fall, he can’t. He’s cried enough over everything and he just cannot do it any more. His lips tremble as he talks.

“Do I kill myself?” Levi chokes. “Do I let all you two have done for me go to waste? Do I kill myself without letting the _kid_ that lost his foot for me know that I’ve never been more grateful of anything in my life?” The gun rattles in his shaking hand. The tears in his eyes are threatening, and he stops blinking them away.  “Because, yeah, I owe the pair of you everything I fucking have. And I try my fucking best, but it’s not enough. ‘cause every time I have something of my own… it’s not mine anymore. It’s yours, or his, and that’s really fucking hard… so, so if I have something, it’s his. Because he’s saved me so many times, right?” Levi laughs. “I can’t _give_ you any more, Hanji. The pair of you practically own me… You two are _forced_ to stick with me, because you have to. But Eren…” Levi swallows, looking over to Eren, “he chose me.”

Behind Levi, Erwin rattles around in his confines. His arms, strapped to his sides, wriggle uselessly, the fingers both missing and present flexing against the palms of his hands as he muffles his words. The gun is still pressed to Levi’s temple.

“No one has ever chosen me before.”

And with that Levi flicks himself around and pulls the gun away from his head, and points it at Erwin’s.

The burst of the gun seems like nothing compared to the way the metal scatters across the floor and lands at Ymir’s feet. It’s nothing compared to Hanji’s screaming and the slide of the metal of Erwin’s restraints as they come undone, and the slap of his body as it hits the floor. The blinding flash of light cannot compare to how Levi rushes towards Eren’s bonds and tugs at them, nor can it equate to how Hanji grabs Erwin’s limp body and screams when she sees the hole in the centre of his forehead. All of the people uninvolved: Ymir, Krista, Marco, Jean, Mikasa and Armin… they don’t hear the screams of Levi begging for Eren’s bonds to be loosened, and when his body finally drops and Levi clumsily grabs it and begins to cry as he stumbles onto the floor… it seems barely believable.

It takes a few minutes for Mikasa to collect herself and rush over to Eren, Armin following close behind.

Ymir, on the other hand, picks up the gun that had fallen at her feet.

The commentator’s voice is nothing compared to the ringing. But she does not care about who she has to kill, who the voice wants her to choose between. She does what is the best for her, and with one shot Connie too is limp and falling to the floor with a line of fresh blood and brain and broken bone falling from the back of his head.

She turns to Krista who looks back with a shrug. “He would’ve been a burden,” is the only rational thing she can say.

The only two left are the boys that had left first of all.

 **“Ymir,”** the voice sings, **“give the gun to… ah! Give it to Armin, if you please- no, no no… no, yes… Armin.”**

Armin looks up. Ymir stands a few feet away with the hand grip of the gun facing towards him. His eyes grow wide.

Mikasa grabs his wrist as he stands to take it off of Ymir. “You don’t have to,” she says, her eyebrows going higher with concern. But Armin just smiles weakly, his cheeks puffy from crying, and takes the gun.

 **“Armin,”** the commentator coos, **“how are you feeling?”**

He only whimpers in reply. The voice laughs lightly, seemingly enjoying the way Armin cannot form the words, too occupied with the four glassy eyes staring into nothing.

 **“It’s such a shame, you’re a very insightful young man, aren’t you? Always the one who has the right words to say.”** The booming sigh that comes from everywhere and nowhere all at once makes the gun in Armin’s hand shiver. He looks over to the two boys still tied up and wriggling against the bonds, muffled cries coming from both of them. He doesn’t want to have to choose between them… but he knows he has to. He wants to live.

 **“I heard, Armin, that you’re a human rights activist, at university and wanting to become a human rights lawyer… you’re an advocate against human testing, human trafficking… all of that. Isn’t that right?”** He nods cautiously. The commentator’s voice is filled with smiles. **“Marco…”** it sighs, **“why don’t you tell Armin about your previous line of employment.”**

Marco and Jean both shrink back. All open eyes turn to them. Jean turns to stare at Marco, his gaze concerned and glassy. Marco swallows. “It’s classified,” he states, but the voice only sighs and chuckles.

 **“I’m sorry,”** it says, its tone soft but blunt, **“I didn’t mean for that to sound like an option. Tell him.”**

Marco breathes out heavily before looking to Armin. “I… I’m not a bad person, y’know… it was part of the job.”

Armin’s eyebrows furrow. He wipes the tears from his face and looks to Marco intently. “What was?” he asks.

“We-“ Marco cuts himself short. His hands pull in front of his chest and he wrings them out against each other. “Where I previously worked… was a laboratory of sorts. I’d… test things, n-not good things, but, I suppose… alien, supernatural... sometimes we weren’t sure. _Most_ of the time we weren’t sure.” He thinks for a moment. “But we had… subjects. And they would be…” Marco makes a pushing motion with his arms outstretched. “We’d put these subjects in with the things we’d be testing. And any subjects we didn’t use, well, that was my job. I’d terminate them.”

“And what were these subjects?” Armin asked. The grip on the gun grew tighter. “People?”

Marco nodded. “Some were criminals, but most were people we took off of the streets. They were just fodder, and it sounds terrible but—“

“Fodder…” Armin repeats. His red-rimmed eyes grow thin with confusion and anger. “Fodder?”

“It’s not how it sounds! They were people to be used. We couldn’t do anything to save them, otherwise I would have done! Jean was… he was the exception, and that almost got us both killed.” Jean grabs Marco’s hand quickly. It leaves him stuttering for breath. “Bu—but it’s not something I’m proud of. I’ve learnt since then…” Marco looks at Jean. “I know what that feels like now, and it’s terrifying. Just don’t hate me for it, and don’t hate Jean for it either. We don’t have a chance in here. Whether we win or lose, we’re both dead…”

The room is quiet for a moment. Armin lets his grip on the gun go slightly, dropping his arm. He sighs just as the commentator does the same. **“Do you understand now, Armin? Do you realise that everyone here has a story you have no clue of? Some of them are more deplorable than you might think. But finding this out… well, I hope you can make a more informed decision.”** The commentator’s voice fades out in the end and drags, slithers towards Armin’s ear. He can feel hot breath whispering to him, and he shivers. **“Armin,”** the voice croons, **“I have one last option in this round, and it all comes down to you.”**

All of the lights drop but three.

One circles Jean and Marco, the other the two boys left out, and lastly Armin, with Eren’s arm just entering the circle of light.

**“Armin, you have three options. The first is this: kill Jean and Marco with that gun, reprimand them for their crimes. In the process, both boys, Bertholdt and Reiner, will be released and will play the game. The second is this: kill the boys and give these two men your salvation. And the third… kill one pair and punish the other, it doesn’t matter which way around you choose. In return Eren will receive enough painkillers to last him through this entire game, if he survives that far. The punished pair, too, will live. Now, Armin, which would you rather do?”**

~~**READER, THE CHOICE IS YOURS.** ~~

~~**WOULD YOU RATHER:** ~~

~~**A)** **SAVE JEAN AND MARCO AND KILL BERTHOLDT AND REINER**~~

~~**B)** **SAVE BERTHOLDT AND REINER AND KILL JEAN AND MARCO**~~

~~**C)** **KILL JEAN AND MARCO, AND PUNISH BERTHOLDT AND REINER**~~

~~**D)** **KILL BERTHOLDT AND REINER, AND PUNISH JEAN AND MARCO**~~

~~**OR** ~~

~~**E)** **HAVE ARMIN QUIT THE GAME SHOW OF DEATH**~~

 

**DECISION MADE. CONTINUE TO NEXT CHAPTER.**


	10. OPTION D PART 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apologies for the lateness. Life decided to flip Author the bird and give them a crackin' migraine.  
> Splitting this into two because it's fucking long and Author ain't plannin' on writing it in one night.

**YOU CHOSE D) KILL BERTHOLDT AND REINER, AND PUNISH JEAN AND MARCO**

 

“I…” Armin swallows. In his circle of light Eren’s fingers twitch in a steady pace, the nails slightly stained with blood moving towards his palm. Mikasa whimpers in happiness, shuffling herself in the darkness so that her shadow passes into where Armin stands. He looks over to Jean and Marco, then at the two young boys. “I can’t kill anyone,” he decides, slowly lowering the gun to the floor and leaving it there.

“Armin.” When his name is called Armin looks up, and sees Jean with his arms crossed against his chest. “Listen, we get it, okay? You don’t want to hurt anyone. That’s nice and all, but it’s now or never.”  He shrugs and looks to Marco before whipping his head back to Armin. “You want to help Eren right?” Armin nods. Jean sighs and purses his lips. “Then we’re okay with us being the ones you—“

“No!” Armin cries. “I’m not shooting anyone here… I can’t do that, it’s amoral!”

“So you’re willing to let Eren lie there in pain just because it’s not moral?” Jean snorts. “It’ll happen at some point, you know. When it comes to this place the likelihood is that Marco and I will both be dead by the time this finishes, and part of me at least would like to know that it’s in the least brutal way possible.”

“But I can’t!” Armin shouts. His arms wave by his sides before he lifts both hands to his head and holds it as though he were holding his mind together. “I can’t kill someone!”

“The choice is yours kid,” Jean swallows, anger rising in his voice. “You kill us, or you kill your friend.” He points to Eren. “The pain will get him if nothing else will. He needs those drugs… We’re offering here.” Besides Jean, Marco nods. “We’re both okay with the fact that we’d come to die here. We never expected to get as far as we have done.”

Armin does not look at Jean or Marco. Instead he looks to the gun sitting idly on the floor.

Jean sighs. “Just think about it. You’re smart… use your brain and think.”

With those words, everything changes for Armin.

Why had he not realised before? This shove was it; the reminder he needed to let him know that this is just a game. It’s just a game… and he has to play it. The objective it to win, and to do that he has to have all of the cards. And in this moment, he’s the king of the board. He holds Park Avenue card, the die… the gun. He runs the board for himself and for Mikasa and Eren, and he wants them to live and win above all else.

And with that thought he quietly walks over to the two boys. He reaches up, pulling the gags from their mouths as they pant and stretch their lips out from their rough positions and turn to look at each other with wide eyes.

“Why are you here? Didn’t you leave?”  Armin numbly asks. His voice is calm and steady, the only hint of his previous feelings lying in his eyes, buried by something else.

Reiner looks to Bertholdt before biting his lips. “We didn’t want to be, okay? There were people out there… and they were waiting, they—they put us back in.”

“And your friend?”

“We don’t know, okay?!” Reiner’s voice rises with worry. “One… one minute we were leaving and the next they—they forced us back in and we… we were kicking a-and screaming at them and then…” he sniffs solemnly, the sound hoarse, “we got separated.”

“So she’s not here…” Armin muses. The gun in his hand feels like a cloud tickling his palm and he grips it as though it would float away.

Bertholdt shakes his head manically, unable to force out any words. Every muscle under the restraints seems to tense, and with a whimper there is a long pause. A darkness spreads over the crotch of his dark grey trousers. Armin is reminded of something.  “It’s okay to be scared… I did that when I was young too, mostly because I was scared or anxious. It’s natural, a last defence against predators but—“ Armin sighs, “knowing that I’m the predator isn’t nice.”

“Then don’t be,” Reiner cuts, his jaw tense. “Don’t hurt any of us.”

“You’re not important to me though...”

“But that doesn’t excuse this!” the young boy bellows. “You can say no!”

“I-I… I can’t say no here…” Armin shakes, “if I do then…” his voice trails away, and he looks back over to Jean and Marco. Their heads are pressed together, eyes meeting and hands intertwined. They look ready… but more important to Armin, they look like pawns. It’s horrible, he thinks, this is not him; this is not what he would ever choose to do. Those words are him admitting that he is as bad as the people who use others for their own means. And yet desperation makes him do it. He sees the couple as nothing more than what Marco had described only earlier to him: fodder. Disposable and yet there, ready. If he plays it right then he’ll win; for himself and for Eren and Mikasa. He feels as though it will break him, and yet he needs to. This is his chance, this opportunity to do what is best for a good majority, to get an shot at playing and get his small group out.

The two men are useful to him because they are willing to die at any time.

“…Then I’ve played this all wrong.” Armin turns his head back to the two young boys, sighing his words. There is sympathy, but it’s cloyed, stunted. Armin hides everything behind the cold image he needs to show, including the feeling of guilt already waiting to claw at his chest. He swallows a lump in his throat that feels like a pebble, or a coin that has slipped from the tongue, and follows the two sets of eyes—one blue, one a dry-leafed green—ready to talk to them one last time.

“I’m so, so sorry…”

Marco looks up just in time to see the gun go off at the second bullet. The jolts of the cartridge ripple the air, the sound pulling everything in a harsh tug before rejecting it again with a bang loud enough to make him fear as though his lungs have burst. 

For a moment he cannot believe it. It’s only after Armin collapses to the floor and pounds the handle of the gun against his forehead, a young but freshly stunted body dripping on either side of him, that it makes sense. Mikasa is over him in an instant. She pulls each finger slowly away from the metal until a faint cloud of dark mist comes and lifts it away… but Armin looks mortified. Marco can relate; it wasn’t easy for him either at first. Yet death has this almost relatable quality to him—it is always there, always just around the corner, especially here with the device around his wrist. Every second he is in here is another more that he survives. There is nothing more to his life than that.

A booming laugh overtakes the room. **“Well well,”** the commentator cackles around Armin’s cries and Eren’s subtle, background muttering, **“isn’t this a twist in the tale?”** It takes a long, deep sigh before chuckling once again. **“Armin… what about the other two?”**

At this Marco sees Armin freeze. It’s slow and long, the way Armin looks over his shoulder to barely look at the people whose lives he would be hurting.

But both he and Jean are used to it.

“I… I want Eren to be better.”

Jean seems to deflate beside Marco. It’s strange; the motion is both heavy with relief and abandonment. Tools, that’s what they are. Both are reluctant to play along, and yet still do.

Jean moves closer to Marco’s ear, his lips almost against the shell. “You know what they’ll choose, right?” Marco breathes out his yes. “And you’re okay with that.”

“No.” Marco grimaces. His lifts his fingers to the bridge of his nose and pinches it hard. “But… if it’s not for us, it’s for him.”

The commentator seems to pick up on their quiet conversation, chuckling darkly. **“Well, Marco and Jean, it looks like you’re being played. How does that feel?”**

Neither man answers the voice, but they hope the dryness of their expressions say it all. They’re sick of it, and yet they have to. However much they want this to be about them, they know it never will be.

But before the commentator says another word, a thin strip of blinding light appears just outside of the round stage in the darkness. A rumbling creak signals its growth. The light stretches out, sending a beam towards the pair, at first a thin line but soon a thick entranceway that starts in a six-foot high rectangle that reaches towards a shrouded ceiling, and then bends towards the two men as though it is searching for them and them alone.

**“To complete Armin’s turn, I require you to step through this door. The others will be following you shortly.”**

Marco swallows, Jean sighing at the sight of the light slowing to a halt, wide and bright. It’s a tense moment; the others watch their every movement. But it’s not like this is not something they are used to. The voice is like the one at the unit. They both did almost exactly the same thing at one point; directing someone to a horror or death that may be unknowingly unpleasant. Their fingers clench into each other’s palms, a silent speech of ‘it’s okay, we can do this’ before they take one echoing step after another until their dark silhouettes are burnt out from the light.


	11. OPTION D PART 2

When their retinas stop burning with light, the two men can almost be fooled into thinking that they are back at the facility. The whole set-up look is similar; white walls that are shining and pristine, a ceiling precisely five meters high, a wire mesh criss-crossing over it as protection. Just beneath that, and slotted into the top of every wall is a large, one-way glass pane.

The thought of what is to be repeated, resurfaced, drags a grunt out of Jean, his lips smashing together in a slowly failing attempt to stop biting them. A trickle of blunt pain almost pulls the eyes that he cannot see away from his body. It feels just the same; except this time he knows that the agony they both had not felt for a long time would be reintroduced with a stabbing vengeance.

 **“Armin!”** The voice croons, however this time directly from a speaker that dangles just underneath the glass, no muffling or crackling ripping through with its careful words. **“Before you here are two men who have killed hundreds, and are about to perform for your pleasure and Eren’s life.  Whenever you wish, instruct the two to begin.”**

It’s hard to know what is going on behind the glass. The silence is almost as deafening as the thought of what may be happening, as well as the thoughts stampeding through their minds as the seconds tick past. The look Marco gives to Jean, and Jean returns, is done without words. Plans are already being made in their heads, ways of trying to get around this situation forming through desperation with every moment.

“Ready.” Armin’s voice crackles through the speaker, weak and wet. Marco can tell that he is crying, but he also knows that before long he will be too. He released Jean’s hand, flattening them against his sides as all class D personnel had done before an experiment, and looks up to the glass.  They know what they have to do.

“D-424, test subject A.”

“D-387, test subject B.” Besides Marco, Jean almost exactly mirrors his position. His eyes are dull. He swallows. “Commencing test sequence one.”

And the pair both reach for their clothes, eyes staying on the glass where they are always supposed to be. Jean hopes that his gaze meets no one else’s as he undoes the buttons on the boiler suit and shucks it off of his arms.

The feeling has never been quite this tense before. Marco finds his fingers struggling against the knot tied around his waist, simultaneously prying the shoes off of his feet with the opposite foot. Neither look at the other, instead too focused on the regular routine.

It is no surprise when Armin snaps. “Stop!” he shouts through the speaker, “What are you doing?”

Neither answers. They aren’t allowed to on a regular day… this is their torture, going through it one more time.  Following the procedure as they would is no more terrifying now than it ever was before. The expectations are high and the consequences worse.

“Answer me!” Armin shrieks. The speaker screeches at the volume of his voice.

**“Your superior has spoken. Answer his question, D-424.”**

Marco reaches down to remove the last of his pant leg, now only in his white vest, underwear and socks. He stands up in the same unguarded position. Jean still undresses besides him. The tail end of their problem peeks out just over the top of his boxers.

“We’re preparing,”

“But for what?” Armin’s small voice grows higher with alarm.

Swallowing away the bile in his throat, Marco continues just as Jean removes the last of his clothes. “For the experiment.”

“I don’t understand! What is this experiment?!” His voice freezes for a moment. Jean can almost hear the shifting of eyes across this body. “Wh-what’s that?” Armin asks worriedly.

Jean continues for Marco. “SCP-021. Skin wyrm. A parasite that lives on the skin of its host, eating the melanin or any other tattoos present. Resembling a snake-like dragon, it is eighty centimetres in length and can move at a speed of about sixty centimetres per hour.” Marco pulls the last of his clothes away from his skin… and it is plain to see.

The tattoo that snakes down Jean’s front and along his penis also twines between Marco’s legs, curling slightly around his thigh, is of an angry looking dragon, perhaps oriental in style. The head rests on Marco’s thigh, whilst the tail flicks up to the left of Jean’s navel. But it is unmoving.

“SCP-021 has the appearance of a tattoo. Its movement causes severe pain… kind of like having a tattoo and removing it all at once. Side-effects of having it on the skin include pain, nausea, vitiligo, but also increased pain resistance, strength and some beneficial effects to the immune system. Most hosts for SCP-021 committed suicide, however some have died of skin infections.”

“Bu… but why are you…” Armin’s small voice freezes.

Marco takes one deep breath before talking. “The most successful method of transferring the skin wyrm is through sexual intercourse, with about a ninety-three percent success rate.” He looks to Jean and smiles sadly. “That missing seven percent came from us. It got too painful and we stopped. The transmission was terminated halfway through, and we effectively killed it. By … by allowing this… we’re letting it live again.” The chorus of swallows over the speaker tells Marco that he needs to continue. “We don’t blame you for this. We’re doing it for your friend. Jean and I were put in here for a reason. Our lives are meaningless.”

They both ignore Armin screaming hoarsely at them over the intercom. After a quick kiss and hug, both Jean and Marco go about preparing themselves. Any overlapping touches, the usual and more romantic route, are dismissed for fear of early transmittal. Jean spits into his hand before stroking himself, his back turned from the speaker. He tries his hardest not to think of the pain that he knows will leave him struggling to go through with the procedure.  He tries to think of being anywhere but here. The images he conjures of his old home, safe and free from pain, and filled with Marco. Pretending that they have gone home is easier than anything. Pretending that the small gasps and breathy whimpers coming from Marco’s lips are just for him and not for Armin and Eren and Mikasa and Hanji and Levi and Krista and Ymir and the commentator with him tacked onto the end is easier. He wishes that the water in Marco's soft sobs is through the opposite of pain. He wants them to be anywhere, doing anything else but this.

Facing the same way as Jean, Marco stretches himself out facing the glass. The marred skin is easier to see from this angle-- the dark shape crawling out of him like an insect forced into the sun by his fingers. Their shame was lost long ago, yet that was the least of his worries. Marco does not want it. He knows that Jean doesn’t either, but it is all the worse for him. He will be the one with the parasite living on his skin, causing him pain. Quick glances to Jean tells him that it is almost time, and he slips in a fourth finger quickly just to try and ease what will come next. There is little pleasure in the act.

 **“You’re taking your sweet time.”** The voice almost growls at them, and a shared glance confirms their worst fears.

They have to do it.

Standing, the pair walk to each other. Jean stretches his arms towards Marco and pulls him close and presses his lips into the crease between his eyebrows. “I don’t mean to hurt you,” his voice cracks with misery. Marco wraps his arms around Jean’s torso. His head falls to the thin shoulder in front of him, eyes growing rough with tears. “Don’t cry…”

But Marco cannot help it. Neither of them want it and yet… and yet they have to.  Jean whispers words just for him in his ear, says sorry too many times, before softly kissing him and dropping to the floor.

 

Eren wakes up to a scream louder than his own.

The pain leaves it almost soundless, and yet it is the most horrible noise he has ever heard. Male and scrambling for breath, it drags the darkness still lingering in the corners of his mind and forces him to turn his head to the window.

On one side of him, Mikasa sits with her head between her legs. On the other Levi is once again pale and sweating hard. Krista and Ymir curl up together as far away from the group as they can get. Armin is nowhere to be seen. Eren and Hanji are the only ones looking at the scene below.

Two bodies; one with the legs stretched apart, the other crying at it leans over. Both try to choke back painful screams, cries of ‘Stop’ and ‘Please’ from two voices.

The commentator is the only one enjoying the scene. It cackles like mad, sighing when Jean decides to curse at it, beg, wish for it to be over. Marco has no words, but the voice fills in for them, urging them on harshly, blackmailing them with every step. With every bout of movement Eren wants to be sick. It is unsavoury in every sense of the word. Forced, unwanted—the words ring out true with every grunted thrust… it is horrible to watch.

**“If you don’t do it, then Eren dies.”**

But Eren is living. There is barely any pain, even when he looks down and sees that his foot is gone, a stump at the end. Mikasa grabs his arm and pulls him away after a few moment of staring, unblinking.  Whatever it is, the voice is lying to the two men. It is forcing this without cause, whatever it is.

The sounds change. It is no longer two voices crying out. One remains, a constant wail of pain, chokes. Jean’s voice is just a series of nonsense sentences. He blurts out anything mildly comforting that his mind can think of.

“It’s over.” Hanji sighs, her face almost pressed against the glass. She watches at Jean brings Marco up into his arm and tries to touch the now steadily moving tattoo rising across the dark-skinned flesh, an almost snowy trail following behind. Wriggling irregularly, it snakes over his thigh and upwards, the head almost to the shoulder. It is an ugly thing, but still fascinating. Before it had almost seemed like a joke, but now it was definitely real.

The commentator is clearly having a whale of a time watching the two. **“Do you see that?!”** it cackles, an intangible arm almost pointing at the sobbing pair, **“Look at them Armin, look what you’ve put them through. The pacifist is the first one to truly torture.”**

Armin is unable to be found. Mikasa releases Eren’s arm after a quick glare to Levi who, despite looking on Death’s door himself, dutifully takes position next to Eren as her replacement. He doesn’t ask him how he feels, but the way he dips his head is almost like a question. Eren responds with a small nod; as good as he will ever be in here.

 **“Ohh, I _desperately_ want Armin to make the next decision too… I want to see how much I can… but I can’t. It’s too much for the poor soul to take. I want to drag this out.” **The commentator hums. **“No… no it will be Armin.”**

“No!”

The once soft voice is hoarse with pain. Armin struggles in Mikasa’s arm, holding him like a vice. He looks mortified, more than that if possible. There is nothing but horror in his eyes. No brightness lurks there, and the once bright blue seems to be lost for a new grey that is painfully similar to that of a dead man’s. Hysteria is perhaps set in, and only when he sees that Eren is awake does he stop thrashing and allow himself to be released onto his friend.

“Oh gosh Eren I—I’m s- so sorry I… This is, oh my—I-I… I’m so—“

“No shh.” Eren lets himself be tangled in Armin’s arms for a moment. “It’s okay.”

“It’s not okay,” Armin whimpers, “I’m hurting everyone.”

 **“You can make it stop, Armin, the hurt.”** The group look up to the point of origin, out of the window. Below, Jean, half clothed, dressed Marco slowly, careful of the scarring tattoo that has left a trail behind it almost a fluorescent white in colour. **“You can take away Marco’s pain, you can forgive them and move let them move on, let them give their parasite to someone else. Or you can let Marco keep it. No one will blame you for that. They’ve forgiven you for this, but you can never be sure if someone else will if they come to own it. It’s your choice Armin.”**

~~**READER, THE CHOICE IS YOURS.** ~~

~~**WILL ARMIN:** ~~

~~**A)** **FORGIVE JEAN AND MARCO**~~

~~**B)** **LET MARCO SUFFER**~~

~~**OR** ~~

~~**C)** **HAVE ARMIN QUIT THE GAME SHOW OF DEATH**~~

**DECISION MADE. CONTINUE TO NEXT CHAPTER.**

 


	12. OPTION B

**YOU CHOSE B) LET MARCO SUFFER.**

 

Armin freezes up. He cannot choose, does not want to… but the decision is no longer in his hands. The aim, the purpose, is to survive. And it is plain to see from the way Marco writhes on the floor that he will not live long in this sort of pain.

He wants to consider it kind to not allow this to move on, but who else would he give it to? Himself? Someone else? He couldn’t do that. The two meant had in effect offered their lives up for his own, for Eren’s, and it wracked him with guilt when he thought about having to inflict such obvious pain on someone who wasn’t willing.

 **“Armin,”** the commentator commands, **“choose.”**

“I… I want to see them.”

“No!” Mikasa shrieks. She reaches over, grabbing Armin’s arm in her tight fist, pulling him back and away from the window. “What if it—“

“It won’t spread. I’m not planning on touching either of them.”

The way Armin sounds turns his stomach. Eren, from where he is lying, sits up and grimaces at the sudden resolute tone, the unsympathetic yet emotionally charged gulp. Armin furrows his eyebrows and almost whimpers in his throat, but he breathes, and he lets the stale air rushing in and out of his nose settle him. It’s not much, but it helps at least a little.

“I want to see them,” he repeats… and the voice does not answer. Instead it hums, a low sound that makes his heart shake in his chest like a low note, the blood in every vein seeming to shrivel up inside of him. But everyone else holds their heads in pain, shrinking down into themselves as though someone were screaming hot breath into their ear. They stop looking at Armin and start to stare at the floor or the backs of their eyelids as though it could make the sound go away, and when they all do, a thin slither in the glass appears, swinging open like a door.

Blinking, Armin presses his hand against it, and it opens. A long, banister-less set of white stairs leads down to the two men, and taking cautious steps, he finds himself slipping slowly down towards the two men. The door turns back into wall and glass behind him.

Marco groans periodically, his nails digging where it can into the floor and scraping back lines of red around his torso. Jean holds his head, shushing, stroking his hair, and then trying with one hand to remove the circle of metal around his wrist.

“Hey hey hey no, no shhh… it’s okay,” he repeats, low voice strangely sweet around the painful tug of the sound of occasional, quiet sobs. “I… I’m getting it off, see?”

Armin takes a few more steps down as slowly and silently as he can. But the room echoes and Marco’s head snaps around, his brown eyes reddened and his face sickly. In such a short amount of time, he went from bright and alive to… this. This; how Marco stares at Armin as though he were looking through him and desperately trying to grab on at the same time. This; the way the tattoo crawls up his chest, leaving a trail of pure white down the centre of his dark and intricate skin. This… this, the almost constant whimpers or cries that escape his lips in a way that makes him seem almost possessed, his body out of control. And when Jean desperately claws at the circle of shining metal around his wrist, then catches where Marco is staring and grapping towards, he looks up too.

“Help.”

The word makes Armin spring into action, feet racing down the last few steps and almost sliding to kneel alongside the two men. Marco looks worse up close. The skin wyrm looks vicious, tongue almost spitefully flicking from its mouth to tease the sensitive skin its body has not reached yet.

He looks at Jean. “What do you want me to do?”

“Help me get this off,” he starts, holding his right arm out, the metal bangle around it skin-tight. “I can’t do it with one hand. I’ll do Marco’s after.”

Armin grabs his wrist. “How does it work?”

Jean keeps one hand on Marco, and turns the other face up in Armin’s hands. The chrome metal is tight to his skin, almost cutting into it, and appears to be a solid ring. “I already pressed the button,” Jean explains, “So I need you to pull the two sides apart.” Armin does what he says, trying to pry the bangle apart from either side, His fingers slipped, but after a few moments, the metal split apart, just barely, and in between is a screw. “Keep pulling that apart until you can properly grip the bar, then unscrew the left half towards you, and the right to me… at the same time.”

Armin does what he says whilst Jean concentrates on Marco for a moment. He’s attentive, so personal unlike the times in the maze where he was detached; and it seems to Armin that whatever had happened to them had brought them together in ways that he could never imagine. Their bond was maddeningly trusting, and despite Marco’s kindness, Jean seems to show the true nature of their past—rough, wary of others and what they do… but knowing, and completely aware that he can be used as much as the next man.

Armin feels that deeper than he should.

“It’s done,” he croaks, and the metal slips away from Jean’s wrist and falls to the floor with a bright clatter. The patch of skin where it had been was cut into, red in colour, as though the skin had been peeled back just to make way for the band. Jean sighs as it slips away and he thanks Armin with a nod.

“Help me sit him up.”

Marco groans lightly when Jean moves his legs away, and Armin gets up. He holds Marco’s back when Jean lifts him up far enough, and Armin watches as Jean shifts Marco’s legs around.  The ill man hacks lightly at the bend in his stomach and Jean just talks to him about anything, distracting words.

“Keep holding him up,” Jean commands lightly.  Armin leans his weight against Marco’s back as Jean fiddles with the identical band still attached to his wrist, this time the process quicker. He pulls it away and for the first time and holds it in his hand, and the gasp Marco makes is almost relieved.

“’m glad that’s off,” he sighs, voice filled with restrained pain. Jean chuckles lightly.

“Same. And you’re okay with this.”

“Was my idea, dummy.”

The couple press closer together, Marco still shivering where their skin touches  but more content when chest to chest with Jean. The weight on Armin lessens, and he slips away without any hindrance, standing to look at Marco and Jean as they sit on the floor.

They fiddle with the now broken apart band, clawing at hair-line cracks with their fingernails. Jean works fast, pulling the lot apart and crossing over wires, removing a small black box before smashing it with his fist. And Armin realises; that was all inside those little bands. Whatever was in there was more than just decoration. It really was a device to watch them, monitor them… and they had been waiting for the opportune moment to tear it apart.

“What are you…” he asks, voice trailing off.

Jean looks up to the blond young man. “You know earlier, when we mentioned that shooting us would be the better option?” Armin nods. “Well, this is the worse option.” Jean’s eyes fall back onto the band as he works.

“I don’t get it—“

“Listen.” Jean keeps his eyes on his careful work. He picks up another piece of metal and pushes in the pin at one end, twisting it gently until a dark line appears. “We knew from the start that coming in here is a Hobson’s choice… we always knew that. So we’ve had a plan from the start. Before this, I worked as an engineer, designing these bands for the same... company Marco worked for. I didn’t make them without a few safety measures.” The metal clicks open, Marco’s close behind, and they both pull out the same wire. “Kill or be killed. Never specified who by, or what with.” He pushes away the outside of the band, bringing another one over to meet two bristled wires with a lick of one finger, twisting them together. “You don’t want to pass this on… and neither do we. Even if you’d said yes to it, we would have refused.”

“This _thing_ not something we would wish onto anyone,” Marco mutters. His face flashes with momentary pain, arm spasming when he passes his work over to Jean. “Here.” Jean takes it and wires the piece into the small collection. He wires the last one in too, but keeps another separate and far away. He places it on the floor.

And Armin starts to cry all over again.

He knows, he knows. He’s thought about it time after time, wondering if it was worth pointing the gun at himself rather than anyone else… but they’re willing. More than any other threat in here; Levi, Erwin, Ymir’s strange presence… there was no one he suspected more of coming this close to death of their own accord than these two. Looking so stable, so decent. But their shadows are dark, and Armin cannot even fathom what they are feeling. He doesn’t want to, it’s too much.

“Hey… Armin.” Armin wipes his eyes at the sound of Marco’s weak voice, looking up to see him smile with the same tears in his eyes. “Be safe.”

“Yeah. Look after yourself kid.” Jean breathes out heavily. “And, uh… you might want to leave this room. It only lasts four seconds before it overheats.”

“Huh?” Armin questions, frozen to the spot; but it’s too late. Jean shuffles close to Marco, holding the bundle of metal and wires in one hand, and Marco takes it too, wrapping his fingers to enclose whatever Jean made between their palms like a shield. Armin takes a small step back just as the two men move chest to chest, Jean using his free hand to grab the free wire and dig it into the centre of their hands. Armin runs.

And they just cling to each other.

He clambers back up the stairs. He takes to at a time, three where he can, breath heaving, dread rising because _he knows he knows_ and he wants out. The seconds count down, and he’s at two when he reaches the top, his fists hit the wall, but the door does not come. He’s stuck. So he turns back.

The couple’s dying words are drowned out by a shattering boom. Glass falls from the windows, dripping onto the ground, blood spraying from the centre of the room like a firework of messy chunks and misplaced limbs. Armin hears screams, feels the warm slap of something hit his chest and spray dead blood up into his wide eyes, gaping mouth.

Gory chunks of body ruins the white, covering the walls and the floor and ceiling with a vibrant red paint. The two bodies on the floor lie splayed, their stomachs eviscerated, faces dead. Their legs tangle slightly, and one arm from each is missing.

Armin is too focused on their eyes to notice Mikasa drag him away. The wet on his chest smells of iron, weighty with meat. There’s crying, muttered gasps of ‘what happened?’ asked  into his ear over and over. But he stays silent. His voice has gone, and he feels like a shell.

But the loudest, most painful cry comes from the white room now painted with death.

The young, blonde girl stands, her uniform clean from blood, and in her right hand… Reiner’s bag.

 **“Ladies and gentlemen!”** The commentator announces brightly. **“I’d like to reintroduce to you our missing player!”**

 

**OPTION REDUNDANT.**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apologies for lateness. Had a serious bout of illness followed by a fuck-ton of coursework. It will be continuing regularly now, although releases will be every other day rather than daily.


	13. NO OPTION.

Eren watches Mikasa drag Armin back towards him. His blue eyes are wide, skin pale and covered in fresh blood that is quickly congealing against this skin. The girl below stares at the body, her chest heaving, and Eren wonders if she is having a panic attack. But she seems to recover herself quickly, breathing deeply and forcing her wide eyes to avoid the mess that stains every surface like a dye. 

Only Ymir seems interested in the new intruder; the rest are wary, wondering if she will suffer the same fate as the two boys she was friends with did, or if she even she knows about what happened to them at all. She looks around, and at the bodies for a moment, but seems not to do anything more. Levi’s eyes settle on Armin in seconds.

“Shit,” he hisses under his breath. Hanji purses her lips as she looks between Levi and the girl, before sighing loudly.

“I don’t think she knows.”

“But we should tell her,” Ymir says, “about what happened with her friends, right?”

Krista scowls at Ymir, but like the others looks to the young girl after a moment. The girl stares back at them, their glares obvious now that the glass has smashed from the explosion, and she grips the bag in her hand tighter before stepping around the mangled corpses in the centre, her feet raised high with every step. Her face is slightly angry-looking, Eren notices, but more in a way that shows disdain rather than rage, as though the sight of the bodies disgusts her rather than shocks her as it does Eren. He thinks it strange.

Armin still stares at the bodies, and Eren knows that he's replaying those moments over and over, trying to find a place where he could have stopped their deaths, could have seen their intentions. But no one knew until the last moment. Eren knows that it's not Armin's fault; it's just too early to say that to him.

The girl is the first to break the echoing silence. “Hey,” she yells up to them… and then stops, unable to continue. No one answers her. They know she’s there, and they know why.

Mikasa and Eren sit close to Armin in silence as they wait for him to snap out of his paralysis. Krista is the first to leave the viewing balcony and walks to the set of stairs, closely followed by Ymir and then Hanji. Levi holds back and waits, almost unsure of what to do with himself.

“Come with us,” Krista says, holding out her hand as she approaches the girl, “it’s better up here.” She smiles, and the girl’s lip twitches before she nods and heads around to the stairs.

“What did that?” she asks. No one answers.

Instead, Hanji wheels around the conversation with a distracting smile. “I’m Hanji, by the way. And you are…”

“Annie.”

Annie follows Krista up the stairs and into the darker room above. She turns for a moment and look down at the mess below. It’s almost eerie how unmoving her gaze is. It settles and then stays for a long time, and something in him does not quite trust it. Ymir introduces herself, and then Krista. Hanji is the one to point out Armin and Eren and Mikasa, and finally Levi, who shakes Annie's hand somewhat ruefully before retreating. 

She asks questions, short but probing. Hanji and Krista answer carefully and with so many stops that it's almost a miracle that the commentator does not answer it for them; but they say what they can to the pinching barrage of questions. What happened to Armin? Has anyone seen my friends? What happened down there? What's going on? What happened to Eren's foot?

For the first time since Armin had given him the injection, his leg throbs, and he flinches. Mikasa immediately notices.

“Are you good?” she asks.

Eren nods and leans down to rub his hands over his aching leg. “I can deal with it,” he sighs, “how did I not bleed out?”

Mikasa shrugs, vague all over again. “Just… don’t stand up too fast.” She waits a moment, wrapping her arm around a spaced out Armin and sighs as she rubs her hand along his arm. “I just can’t believe this. I feel like I’m going to wake up at any moment and—“

“And this’ll seem stupid, yeah,” Eren finishes.

“Why did we agree to this?” Mikasa questions herself, her voice cracking.

But Eren can’t answer. Instead, the voice laughs over their chatter and the room goes dark, not black, but the lights dim to where only a few in the room below cast shadows down the wall and makes the burgundy blood below shine obscenely.

 **“Well… that was not expected,”** it chuckles darkly, **“but then again I never thought you humans to be so intelligent. Their little device was rather a smart one, probably the best for a long time, very discreet. I wish I’d noticed it sooner, the studio guardians hate cleaning up messes that _they_ haven’t made.” ** The commentator’s breath afterwards is somewhat disenchanted, but still thinking. It seems to be having fun, and it unnerves Eren. It knows that the group are growing weaker, and it’s ready to tear at them; he can feel it.

 **“I really do hate it when people don’t follow my orders… but since those two men cannot take the punishment I suppose that it will have to move on to one of you.”** It laughs again. **“Or maybe all of you, who knows!”**

Ymir leans down to whisper something in Krista’s ear.

**“And since those two were so close, let’s punish you all by removing you from the people you came here with.”**

“But that’s unfair!” Eren shouts, attempting to stand up, but his leg makes it impossible. He hisses before collapsing back onto the bench he had just stood from. “That wasn’t our fault!”

 **“That is what happens when people don’t follow the rules,”** the commentator reprimands harshly. **“It doesn’t affect just those who _break_ them, it affects _everyone_. But I’ll tell you what… because I understand that you never asked for those two men to blow themselves up, I’ll give you a hint of advice.”**

The room goes dark once again, and cold air whips around them all. Eren stays seated but he can feel Armin’s presence being moved away. And it’s just getting frustrating for him, to think that he has let Armin and Mikasa and himself be this played, this used and abused.

But he knows that he did it for a reason. He’s just not so sure now that the prize will ever be worth what he has seen, and he knows that Armin has had it one thousand times worse.

The lights rise, and they are in the white space below where the previous game had ended. The eviscerated bodies of Jean and Marco have been cleaned away and the shattered glass no longer sticks out from the floor like knives. It’s pristine once again, but the centre of the room is now filled up by a large table, six feet long and three wide and made out of a bright, reflective metal.

A medical bench, and around it lies six trays, each with an array of sharp knives, clamps, small mirrors, tubes, buckets, vacuums and needles, along with one, white envelope each with a letter written in the top left-hand corner.

**“Pick someone you think you can trust.”**

 

~~**READER, THE CHOICE IS YOURS.** ~~

~~**OUT OF EVERY PLAYER EXCEPT ARMIN AND MIKASA, WHO DO YOU THINK IS THE MOST TRUSTWORTHY?** ~~

~~**A)** **HANJI**~~

~~**B)** **LEVI**~~

~~**C)** **ANNIE**~~

~~**D)** **KRISTA**~~

~~**E)** **YMIR**~~

 

**DECISION MADE. CONTINUE TO NEXT CHAPTER.**


	14. OPTION B

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ALL OTHER PAIRS WERE RANDOMLY SELECTED.

It’s a strange feeling, and for some reason it reminds Eren of the moment in class where the teacher asked everyone to switch partners from the person sitting next to them. It feels like looking around the room desperately to find a face willing to pair up and deal with him for an entire hour.

Eren scowls, but ends up trying to wordlessly catch Levi’s attention after only a few seconds. Levi instantly stares back, first raising an eyebrow and then shrugging when the creases on Eren’s forehead smooth over in a silent plead to pair with him. It’s instantly gratifying when Levi is the first out of everyone to move across the room and stand protectively by Eren. He feels safe, strangely, as though it’s not just him, Mikasa and Armin anymore. There’s more to help him hold on.

Mikasa stares Levi down, but switches her attention to Ymir in an instant when she attempts to approach Armin. She jumps in front of him, arms out to either side to form a barrier.

“You touch him and I’ll break your neck,” she hisses.

Ymir just laughs back, hands raised in defeat before turning back and decisively looping her arm through Annie’s instead, smirking like a dog the entire time. The threat to tell the girl what Armin did to her friends is plain in her eyes, a small warning. It just serves in pissing Mikasa off more, the angry huff resonating at the back of her throat almost a tell-tale warning for Hanji to jump in.

“Come on, we can buddy up,” she tries, the fake upward tug of her lips probably the best she can do in the moment. She pats Mikasa on the shoulder causing Mikasa to jerk her elbow back in protest, but she stands up and moves away without protest, her eyes on Armin the entire time. Eren is better; she knows that she cannot trust Levi, but Eren can.

It leaves Krista to sigh and stand by Armin, looking sadly over at Ymir and then Mikasa’s hot glare. She’s not happy, it’s completely obvious, and so Krista keeps her hands far away from the young man by tucking them behind her back neatly.

 **“Are we done?”** the commentator asks, **“Wonderful! I’m glad that we all managed to get that done so quickly. It must be all of these wonderful women, so calm compared to the men we’ve had in here before. It’s a lovely influence.”** It chuckles as though it has its own joke, but no one else follows the voice’s lead. The room feels silent and cold for a long moment before the voice talks again. **“And now, onto the next round. The game is very simple. Each pair has to pick a tray and in turn an envelope labelled A, B, C, D, E and F. In each of these envelopes is a pre-decided task that involves the use of the instruments from those trays. Once the choice is made, the tasks inside have to be performed on one member of the pair. The order of the tasks will be done in the envelopes’ already established alphabetical order.”**

**“The rules are as follows: if one member of the pair refuses to cooperate, they are both disqualified from The Game Show of Death; the attempt to perform the tasks will be judged by me, and if they are not up to my standards then both parties will also be disqualified; and finally, the task must be completed no matter what the state of the receiving party is. Until the task is deemed finished, you have not been cleared, and not doing so will result in disqualification from The Game Show of Death.”**

**“Now, if you all want, you can look at the trays; but if you touch them or any of the equipment you will lose The Game Show of Death and be promptly disposed of.”**

“Do you want to look?” Eren turns to look up at Levi and nods. It seems like the best option; most of the others are immediately wandering over to the trays, except for Krista who sticks around by Armin as though she is letting him decide, even if he makes no move other than the occasional jitter.

Levi bends down and wraps one arm around Eren’s waist to act as his leg, Eren draping his arm around Levi’s neck and gripping onto the shirt on the other side. It’s a struggle but they somehow manage to heave themselves up and towards the trays, Eren’s shortened leg pressed against Levi’s to try and support it and rub out the feeling of his phantom foot burning at the end. It doesn’t work, he’s just too tall for it, and Levi’s sharp hip bumps up against his thigh with every step, causing him to feel as though his leg were painfully bruising every time.  But they somehow manage without having to fuss too much, and even as they get there Levi just pulls Eren in closer and doesn’t let him fall. It’s comforting, easy.

The rest of the group aren’t so happy. They stand around, staring at the identical trays and the equipment surrounding it with quizzical stares and shared confusion. Hanji is the most animated .Whilst everyone else looks around with a faint glimmer of horror in their eyes, Hanji seems incredibly aware. “This isn’t good,” she sighs, “this is proper surgical equipment.” She turns to the group. “This is proper operation gear. It wants us to operate.” She stomps over to a large set of monitors behind the metal bench and points at it, half talking to herself. “See that? It’s an IV, and on there’s a heart monitor, a monitor for blood pressure, blood oxygen… catheters, oh my fuck a bypass machine—two bypass machines!.... This isn’t good.”

“Hanji,” Levi cuts, “what’s it for?”

“I… I don’t think whoever runs this game wants everyone to do this, but it’s throwing us off, putting more than one in there. Plus, there are six envelopes and only four pairs. We could avoid them—“

“What the fuck are they for?” He asks again, voice angry and grating and dipping low towards the end.

Hanji breathes out slowly, closing her eyes and shaking her head twice. “I… I think that one envelope at least is for a heart transplant.” She shrugs and slams her hands down against her thighs. “And these trays aren’t any good for telling me which one it might be either. They all have the tools, and not just for this surgery. There’s… too much on here, and some of it is old hat, not up to date or even complete. This is incredibly dangerous. Fatal even.”

Ymir laughs breathlessly, wriggling herself away from Annie and rubbing her hands over her face. “So what you’re saying is that we have no clue which one is which, and we’re just, what? All gonna cross our fingers and hope for the best?!”

“Lucky dip,” Annie fills in.

“But there’s a chance, right?” Krista calls from with Armin. Her voice is slightly panicked but she stands resolute. “If… if we don’t pick it.”

“But I don’t know what the rest are. It could be anything,” Hanji shrugs, “I don’t know if there are more surgeries or what. But if that option is picked and someone agrees to the surgery, then that person isn’t going to survive.” She turns back to the trays and looks them over one more time before shaking her head. “There’s no anaesthetic. Whoever has it done will die of pain before they even had their heart removed. And even if we did have the anaesthetic, a medical team to do a transplant would contain at least five people. There’s no way one person can perform a surgery this long and this difficult alone. You'd be so overworked that everything would be over in an instant if something went wrong, and that's assuming you have medical experience.”

Ymir hums loudly, crossing her arms over her chest. “And you’d know because—“

“Because I've been working as a surgeon in a general hospital for thirteen years and I’m telling you that there is a high probability that someone’s going to die if we get this wrong!” Hanji shouts. Her arms flail above her head, and one arm almost hits the IV stand next to her. “Because that is _the_ worst option. That’s instant death, and for all we know, more of these envelopes are exactly the same. There’s more than one thing we can do with any of this shit. This isn’t a choice any more. This is skill. This is one wrong move and you’ve gone through a major artery and your friend is dying in front of your eyes, okay?! One wrong move and you’ve gone through a nerve and that’s it. You’ve paralysed them, you’ve put them in so much pain that they go into shock instantly. And then what? They get dragged off? They decide they’ve had enough of the pain and off themselves like those two men did?” Then, almost manically, she laughs. One step after another she moves towards Ymir, a finger outstretched in front of her as she points every word her head tenses and jitters as she talks faster and faster, her breath picking up and her eyes shining behind her glasses as though she’s going insane at the thought of what this could do. “This isn’t a joke,” she screams, “there’s no antiseptic, no pain relief… there’s nothing. Whatever happens, whatever you have to do to the person you’re with, the likelihood of them dying is very, very high. And you may be acting like a stuck-up prick, but I don’t want anyone else to die here. Not even you. So when I say that this is a problem, so God help me it’s a fucking problem.”

Ymir remains silent for a moment, and then she shrugs, turning her back to Hanji and walking away. “Fine… I’ll be the one to get cut up.” She looks at Annie. “You owe me one though.” Annie nods, but looks relieved.

“I’ll do it too.” Everyone looks at Eren. He stalls for a moment. “I’m the only one with pain meds, right? I’ll be okay.”

“No,” Mikasa refutes, “let Levi do it.”

“He can’t,” Hanji says.

“Why not?”

“It’s none of your fucking business,” Levi growls. “If Eren wants to do it, he can. I'm grateful for that but I’m _not_ going to let him die on me. I'll rot in hell before that happens.”

Mikasa stares at Levi for a long while, and he stares back, unblinking. Finally, Mikasa turns her head away with a sigh and looks instead to Krista.

The blonde woman perks up from beside Armin. “I’m not sure,” she says lightly. “I don’t think he can go through with it either way.”

“No…” Armin’s voice suddenly cracks lightly through his dry lips and he coughs out the rasp in his throat. “I can’t do it again. I can't...” he whispers hoarsely and then buries his face in his hands. Krista immediately wraps her arms around him and shushes, promising that she’ll do the best she can and that she’ll try not to hurt him. For a moment, Mikasa feels satisfied with her.

“What about us?” Hanji asks Mikasa.

Mikasa turns around to her partner and shrugs, eyes downcast. “I don’t trust you, but I know you can do it.”

“I can, don’t worry about that. And if it’s too bad, I promise to switch with you.”

Hanji smiles lightly at Mikasa, and it’s returned. The room feels settled, yet separated and full of apprehension. Levi tightens his grip on Eren, squeezing his waist momentarily as a silent ‘thank you’, and Eren return it. When they turn around and walk back towards the bench Eren had been sitting on they see a small box. Inside is the pain medication, and the pain in his leg instantly flares up, as though waiting for it. The others too talk in pairs about what they plan on doing, picking, before the voice overhead calls out loudly and they all turn their heads up to try and find the source of the voice.

**“I hope you’ve all decided on which envelope you’d like to take. Now, would each pair like to make their decision; A, B, C, D, E, or F?”**

~~**READER, THE CHOICE IS YOURS.** ~~

~~**WHICH ENVELOPE WILL EACH PAIR (HANJI & MIKASA; EREN & LEVI; ANNIE & YMIR; ARMIN & KRISTA) CHOOSE?** ~~

~~**A) A** ~~

~~**B) B** ~~

~~**C) C** ~~

~~**D) D** ~~

~~**E) E** ~~

~~**F) F** ~~

 

**DECISION MADE. CONTINUE TO NEXT CHAPTER.**


	15. OPTION: LEVI & EREN- E; HANJI & MIKASA- B; ARMIN & KRISTA- A; YMIR & ANNIE- F. PART 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The contents of each envelope were randomly selected using a random generator.  
> Overlapping choices were chosen by a random generator.

**YOU CHOSE: EREN AND LEVI- E; HANJI AND MIKASA- B; ARMIN AND KRISTA- A; YMIR AND ANNIE- F**

 

 **“Have you all made a decision?”** The voice asks. Most pairs look at each other quickly, passing questioning looks between them, nodding slightly, sighing. **“Then, ladies and gentlemen, would you please stand by your preferred letter.”**

The pairs separate off, Krista helping Armin stand with stares from Mikasa, Levi doing the same as before and holding on tightly to him. Mikasa comes and stands by the tray with the envelope signed with an almost musical looking ‘b’, and is almost grateful when no one stands in either the ‘c’ or ‘d’ spaces. He reaches out over the gap with his free hand and she moves across to put his fingers through hers, and squeezes lightly. She weakly returns it, looking over to the tray Eren stands by, and the envelope marked with an ‘e’.

Krista and Armin stand on the other side of Mikasa, Krista between her and Armin. She smiles sadly. “We decided to get it over and done with,” she murmurs.

 **“The order for this round is: Armin and Krista, Hanji and Mikasa, then Eren and Levi… and last but not least Annie and Ymir. Would all teams please collect their envelopes but do not open them yet, and then return to your designated spots… except for you, Krista and Armin. Please remain by your tray.”** The couples pick them up, Levi holding his, Annie holding hers, and Mikasa gripping tightly onto the paper. Krista has left hers on the tray, almost looking expectantly at Armin, as if she is waiting for him to pick it up. But when the others return to their spots, she finally picks it up.

Armin keeps staring off at nothing.

Krista taps him on the shoulder, he barely flinches. “We need to do this,” she sighs sadly, “please.” But his eyes stay blank and wet, unwilling, too caught up in what he has seen to even care.

**“Armin, Krista. You can now open envelope A.”**

Eren watches her open it, still slightly gripping onto Levi’s forearm for support. Krista looks through her lashes as she runs her thumb along the seam, then pushes it open with her finger.

Inside is a thick clip of papers, at least ten or fifteen pages. But what catches Eren’s attention is the way she drops it, her hands moving to her shaking head and her muffled words slipping through her fingers.

“No no no no…”

Mikasa jumps from her spot. Eren’s eyes widen.

**“Stay back! Interfering with the procedure results will result in immediate removal.”**

Mikasa stills on the spot and her fists clench at her sides. Hanji steps forward and brings her back. “What…” Mikasa chokes, “what is it?”

“Oh God…” Krista starts to cry, “I’m… s-so sorry,” she chokes. She bends down, one hand over her mouth and wet with tears, and picks up the papers. “P-perf… perform a,” her breath catches, “a heart—“

Out of the corner of his eye Eren sees a bench flip across the room, Mikasa’s chest rising and falling, her nose flaring with each inhale. It splinters on the floor, painted wood skittering across the floor. Hanji screams in the back of her throat, hands tearing at her hair. “Fuck this! Fuck…” She sits on her haunches and slaps the floor with one hand as the guttural roar at the back of her throat grows. “This isn’t fucking fair!”

Eren feels something run down his face, and he clenches his jaw.

“Nothing’s fair in here,” Ymir bitterly spits, “but you’ve got to do it.”

Mikasa’s head whips around. “Don’t you—“

“I don’t want to!” Krista shouts. “This is different, Ymir. This isn’t the same.”

“Yeah well neither did I!” Ymir screams. “And I thought we were done with this, I thought we were fucking _done_ doing shit for other people. But it had to be one more fucking job didn’t it? So fucking get it done.”

“Ymir—“

“One. More. Job,” she snarls. “Do it.”

Krista takes a dry swallow, then moves back towards Armin. Her face changes. Her eyes are still bright with tears, her cheeks still wet. But she’s cold. She looks through the sheets of paper as though they are the morning paper, and then moves onto Armin, guiding him towards the metal bed. He walks for a few steps then seems to snap out and stare her in the eye. It's a job, she tells herself, and that's enough.

“Wait.” Armin's voice rasps, but he has enough energy to grip her hand then look towards Mikasa, then to Eren… and he watches them. His blue eyes see, but seem to float around as though he were watching the clouds instead. Even standing in this room, he’s already far away. He’s already gone.

And yet he still smiles. It’s weak, but he smiles at them both and nods once. Eren’s tears get worse. He digs his nails into Levi’s forearm.

“Armin,” he chokes out. “Armin don’t… ple— please you can’t—“

“I’ll—“ Armin cuts himself off with a rough gag. His weak breath hitches and he tries again. “I’ll… we… we’ll...”

“Krista,” Ymir spits. And that’s it.

Krista pulls Armin back onto the bench and in her hands he just gives in. He lets her pull her back and strap his arms and legs down onto the metal bed.

Eren screams, his fingers cutting into skin and drawing blood. Levi tries to pull him back, as Hanji does to a writhing Mikasa, hysterical and cursing Krista’s name between high and painful wails. He ends up having him almost in his lap; his arms firmly strapped around his waist whilst Eren reaches forward and kicks his legs against Levi’s. Each scream that comes with the kick of his legs is mixed with the growing pain and it’s not long before Armin is almost completely still as he lies there. Eren halts when the pain becomes too much, and he slumps forward.

Mikasa continues to screech her lungs out. Ymir watches, Annie looks to the floor.

It takes some time before Krista even picks up the first instrument. She looks through the sheets of paper attached to the procedure, and turns to the first page, running her eyes across it before grabbing a pair of scissors from the tray and cutting open Armin’s shirt, first up the chest and then along the arms, the veins visible and accessible. She grabs the station littered with monitors and drags it over, pressing a button after a brief glance at the paper. It lights up.

“Don’t!” Mikasa shouts in vain once again.

Krista almost pretends not to hear. Instead she presses the small suction cups onto Armin’s skin where the instructions given to her direct, then finds a vein and presses the IV line into his skin. Armin doesn’t even flinch. She checks over the numbers written on the paper.

Then she begins.

The first cut runs from just under Armin’s Adam’s apple to his navel. He screams the second the scalpel cuts into his skin, his body rising off of the table and the beeping of the heart monitor raising up as he pants and tries to move away from the blade. Krista drags it down his skin faster, and lifts it away from his skin after only a few moments, seemingly satisfied with the cut she has made after she places the scalpel back down onto an empty dish in the tray. He falls back to the table, moaning out loud and pulling his arms against the straps to try and pull them free. The blood pouring from his neck to navel falls around his pale ribs and down onto the bench below, staining his once clean shirt. His ribs are stained with blood, muscle between each bone flexing with pain, covered in a thin layer of fat as Krista slowly slices away.

Eren stops struggling. He’s torn between watching and hiding himself in his hands and letting Levi keep him upright. It’s not until he hears the sound of Armin’s breastbone cracking in two that he decides that he can’t look. He turns his head away, looking almost completely around to Levi. His lips are moving slowly, but Eren cannot hear what they’re saying over Armin’s scream and the upward climb of the heart monitor that seems to be racing towards the sound of a constant beep.

The only sound in the room is Armin’s scream; the beep of his heart, the crack of his bones as Krista splits them without so much as a word is enough for Eren to squeeze his eyes shut, half praying for it to all end and burying his vision into Levi’s jacket as though it could block it all out. He feels nothing until someone grabs his arm, and he barely opens his eyes to see Levi expertly pressing the painkiller into the crook of his elbow, then holding his thumb over the small prick and waiting for the screaming to end, his own chin buried into Eren’s shoulder, his eyes staring over at the scene.

Armin screams for a long, long time. But it dies slowly, first loud and then turning into a scared whine, before a murmur… then the sound of an almost complete flat line. By then, Krista has attached the cardiopulmonary bypass, and the blood flows due to the force of its suction. That’s the only thing keeping Armin alive, but just barely.

His heart is removed slowly and clumsily, by unskilled hands that don’t quite cut the arteries right. His lungs barely move. His whole body bleeds too much, and for the first time in the whole operation Krista utters a word of her frustration. It’s perhaps two hours in, if that. It feels like a lifetime and a second all at once. There is no mark of anything but the sounds of breathing and panic, and the growing realisation that there will be another massacre in this room.

Mikasa screams herself into a faint for a short while. Eren starts to move, still drowsily leaning against Levi, who just rubs his hand along Eren’s arm and wonders how long it will take before someone outwardly says the word ‘stop’. It comforts him more than Eren.  

He watches the heart being pulled from Armin’s chest, and the sound of the beep coming to a complete halt as nothing else can be done. Levi looks to Hanji, and she just looks back, miserable. Ymir studies Annie more closely than she does the operation.

Another heart goes in. It looks slightly too small, and it makes Levi wonder if it is even human. Pig, maybe. It seems cruel to debase the kid for no reason other than sick pleasure. But as the heart goes into the boy’s chest, and Krista spends a long, long time clumsily sewing everything together, he knows that that’s the point.

His body gets put back together slowly, and by then it seems to have gone slightly stiff. The blood in the pipes of the machine has completely stopped and conjealed, and his skin is pale. Eren looks up and around, starting to cry all over again.

“He doesn’t deserve this,” he whispers into Levi’s shoulder.

Krista moves away from the bench. Her black outfit shows no sign of the blood, but her hands are drenched, and her face splattered. She waits for a long time before looking at Ymir and then moving towards her.

 **“Excellent,”** the voice seems bright and cheery, **“congratulations Krista on completing the challenge. But ah,”** it sighs dramatically, faking sadness, **“it’s such a shame about poor Armin. Would the studio guardians please remove the body.”**

Eren’s eyes widen, and he suddenly moves against Levi. He goes to shout to wait—but it’s too late. A thick, dark fog moves over Armin, and in an instant him and all of the blood covering the bench evaporate into thin air. It’s over in a moment, and he’s not given a second to grieve. There’s no time in here, and it’s stifling.

**“And so eight go down to seven. Now, Mikasa, Hanji. It’s your turn. Please open your envelope.”**

Hanji passes the envelope to Mikasa. She tears into it without thinking, pulling out the folded sheet and laughing when she sees what is written on it.

“He could have had this,” she bites, “he wouldn’t’ve had to die.”

Hanji takes the paper from Mikasa’s grasp, and sighs at the paper. “You can do this?” she asks. Mikasa swallows, then angrily nods. “I’ll do my best.”

“Sure. For him.”

**“Could Hanji and Mikasa please move to the bench.”**

“Sit down on the side. You don’t want to lie down, you might inhale blood.”

Mikasa does as Hanji tells her, looking over to Eren shortly before ignoring his gaze completely. She’s exhausted, he can tell. So she lets her get it over and done with.

Hanji is incredibly careful. She looks through the pages before pawing over the tools. She places a small kidney dish by Mikasa’s side, and cuts open a bag of saline fluid at one corner in case she needs to spit and rinse.

It only takes a short while before Hanji rips out the first tooth.

Mikasa hears the sound of the clamps pulling the incisor away from her jaw, tearing away some gum and she shouts around the metal in her mouth. She thinks about how many teeth she has. Thirty-something? Thirty-something times this same process has to go over and over, each tooth removed until they are all gone, as the instructions say. She’s tired, she’s done with it. She wants out and she does not care. The pain is bad, but the feeling of stupidity for ever letting herself get to this position is worse.

Armin is gone, Eren is halfway to dead with one more move to go… and she could lose him in a moment.

Hanji pulls out one more tooth and Mikasa wriggles on the bench, frantically moving her hand around the metal surface to find the dish.

“Sorry, sorry I should have put it closer,” Hanji rushes. She passes the saline bag over to Mikasa. The sticky water drenches her fingers, but she lifts the bag up to her lips and revels as the taste of blood gets mixed with heavy salt and an almost pleasant sting compared to the emptiness that having three teeth missing leaves. She spits into the kidney dish, and it’s a watered-down red. Her mouth immediately takes bitter-sweet again.

“Carry on,” Mikasa tries to say, but her mouth is swollen all over. Everything already feels as though it’s on fire. She powers through.

Four more teeth fall down onto the tray with the opened envelope marked ‘b’. The molars are the worst. They have to be almost pried from their sockets in her jaw, and Mikasa can hear the sound of them grinding, bone against bone, inside her skull like two stones grating each other, right inside her skull. The nerves that flare up with the sound make it all the worst. Sometimes she opens her eyes and looks at the tray where Hanji has laid the teeth out, top and bottom row, in neat lines.

Hanji is incredibly careful, considerate almost. From time to time she stops to let Mikasa recover, forcing her to gargle the salty water and spit it away. She does the bottom teeth first, then the top, from front to back and left to right. She plugs up broken gums with wetted cotton buds and says “That’s it, just a few more and then you’re done,” whilst she smiles comfortingly and professionally, knowing that time makes the raw pain dim into a pulsing ache diminished by the body's reaction to cull the terrible feeling and push through.

The pain gets better. It becomes less noticeable, and Mikasa, her head slightly light of blood, wonders if this is how Armin felt. She has to remind herself that he’s dead. It doesn’t feel silent enough yet, it doesn’t feel like he is gone.

“You’re done,” Hanji says. It's been a full hour on top of what she knows is at least four for the surgery before. She looks sobered, and immediately moves to help Mikasa. She has to pour the saline into her mouth, Mikasa too faint to do it herself, and lift the dish so that she can spit. The dark pink water dribbles from between her lips. Hanji uses gauze to wipe it away. Some drips to the bench and she cleans it up. It smears more than lifts.

The room buzzes without the sound of grating bone or someone’s pained shouts. The voice waits for a long moment, enough time for Mikasa and Hanji to make it to Levi and Eren and slump next to them. For the first time in what feels like and has been hours, the room is without any sound at all.

Eren quickly takes Mikasa and lets her lean against him, Hanji settling on Mikasa’s other side.

Her face looks sunken without her teeth, lips slipping into her mouth and rubbing against her sore and bleeding gums. Weak whines escape from through her nose as she tries to move them away and stop the rub of tender flesh against skin. She’s out of it, the pain almost too much for even her.

 **“Congratulations to both of you; that was a very successful round.”**  Eren feels a light tap on his elbow. He turns to Levi. He's grimacing.  **“And now, would the next pair please open your envelopes.”** The commentator chuckles. **“You know who you are.”**

Levi picks up the envelope from where he’d left as though he could forget it. The letter on the front, printed in a neat font, stares back at him like an eye on the page. He lets Eren look over his shoulder, his breath close to his ear. Fingers tear the white paper, and then roughly pull out the thick wad of paper bent into two.

He flips it apart… and stares at the page.

“Hanji,” he questions. His voice is low, scared of the answer. “What’s a laryngectomy?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Second half will go up tomorrow.


	16. OPTION: LEVI & EREN- E; HANJI & MIKASA- B; ARMIN & KRISTA- A; YMIR & ANNIE- F. PART 2

It hurts Levi more when Hanji doesn’t answer his question. She knows, she has to… but withholding the information feels like betrayal. It forces him to look at the paper in his hands.

He can hear Eren gulp in his ear.

Levi flips the first page over, and immediately he is greeted by rough, doctor-like handwriting. It’s in cursive, and slanted so severely that it takes him a second to read it.

_‘Laryngectomy is a surgical procedure that aims to remove all or part of the larynx (voice box) within the throat.’_

_‘During a total laryngectomy, the entirety of the larynx and lymph nodes are removed, and on some occasions, part of the pharynx. The pharynx is the tube that connects the air that enters through the nose to the larynx.’_

_‘Complete laryngetcomical surgery will also involve an incision being made into the front of the trachea and the neck to allow the patient to breathe through after surgery. This will leave a hole in the front of the neck called a stoma. After surgery, the patient will breathe primarily through the stoma. This can never be removed.’_

Below the rough writing are three detailed pencil sketches. The first is an anatomical diagram of the neck, showing incision lines from place to place, and small notes in the same scruffy handwriting, the one after is a side view. It indicates which parts are removed, and how to complete the stoma. The last is a finished product; a line runs around the neck, a small hole placed almost centrally between where the Adam’s apple would have been, and the dip in-between collarbones. But even after that, page after page of instructions and lists go on until eventually it stops.

Levi curses quietly. It feels to him as though that is all he has done for hours now; just small, rude words that cannot quite capture just how out of place he is.

Eren takes slightly longer to look over the pages, studying each word carefully. One subconscious hand drifts up to the point where the diagram indicates, and imagines himself with a great, dark gap that would lead straight into him. Would it be painful? Would he ever be able to talk again.

Fuck, would he even survive that?

“I’m doing it.” Eren turns to Levi, his mouth hanging open. Levi breaths out heavily. “Eye for an eye.”

It takes a moment for Eren to realise what he’s trying to say, but when Levi stares at him without blinking, he gets it. But he cannot say he is grateful. He doesn’t want to do it, but he doesn’t want it done to him.

Hanji is infinitely more angry.

“You are not,” she chastises, “I’m not letting you.”

“Well tough shit Hanji, I’m doing it.”

He stands up and roughly takes Eren with him, practically storming across the room to the now cleaned bench and immediately sits himself down onto it. Eren tries to stand by the side but ends up leaning on the cold metal and then turning himself around to that he sits beside Levi. He takes the paper and looks through it.

“You don’t have to,” he says quietly, looking at Levi from under his lashes.

“There’s no way you’re doing this, no chance in hell.”

“But I don’t want to hurt you.”

Levi scoffs. “I didn’t want to hurt you either, but it happened and it’s shit.” Their eyes fall back onto the paper.

“I really don’t want to…”

“Eren.” Levi grabs Eren’s shoulder and pulls him around to face him. The other hand lands when they come face to face, his eyes solid, jaw clenched. He nods his head and tries to hold Eren’s drifting eye contact. “Do it. Get it over and done with, then we can worry about the shit that happens after, ‘kay? I’m not gonna hate you for this.” The look between them doesn’t last; Eren dips his head to stare down at his stumpy leg… only to have it brought back up by cold fingers wrapped firmly but carefully around his jaw. They bring him up to face Levi directly, almost a scowl on his face. “Eren,” his sigh ends in a small scoff, “you can be my voice, alright? I’ll be your leg. We can figure this shit out. I’m just not letting you die on me.”

Eren sighs… but finally nods his way out of Levi’s grasp and purses his lips.

He’s doing this right, and he’s doing it well. He’s making sure of that. He can’t let him go.

“Okay… but I’ll need help.” Eren moves his short leg and huffs. “Can’t walk.”

Levi stands silently and grabs the tray labelled ‘e’ and a large stand covered in machines before moving it around so that it sits by Eren’s left side and the monitors by his right. “Anything else?”

“Yeah, how’re we going to do this?” Eren asks. “I can’t stand, and you have to lie down so…”

Levi sighs, crossing his arms for a moment. It’s a slightly awkward proposition, but it’s the only one that would work. “Move over,” Levi instructs with one arm flailing absently to the right, almost as an indirect push to tell Eren to move up to the end of the bench. Levi takes off his boots, then his jacket and shirt, both of which he hands on the IV stand, then lies flat on the bench, his head towards Eren. He leans over and grabs the IV, plugging it into his arm, then the small cups that he presses into the top of his chest. The machine begins to beep rhythmically, but quickly. “Now put one leg either side of my head,” he says.

Eren chokes.

“If you’re going to fuck me up then I’m planning to do it in the comfiest way possible,” Levi sighs. “Just do it.”

It takes a bit of internal encouragement, but after a few moments, Eren swings his bad leg over Levi’s head and then settles the other close to his other side. Levi’s head moves back half to look at Eren and half to see if it will work. Resting his head in Eren’s lap leaves his neck exposed, and hopefully decent enough to be operated on.

It’s decent, not perfect but good enough to deal with. Eren picks up the sheets of paper and flicks through onto the fourth page where the instructions start. He skips over the first few with his eyes; anaesthetic, antibacterial, blood tests, medical history…

Hanji’s fuming. Eren feels glad that he’s facing away, but in the bubble of the small surgical area it almost feels as though all external noise has been removed.

It’s not until step six that Eren finds that he can actually do anything. He looks over the tray to his left side and finds a scalpel.

“Wait,” Levi panics. His breath is quicker, the machine racing slightly. “Give me a moment.... Kind of struggling with the thought of not being able to talk.”

“You’ve barely spoken the whole time we’ve been here.”

“Yeah, well, I like cussing,” Levi huffs, looking up backwards from between Eren’s legs, “and I’m not looking forward to looking like a street mime when I try and talk.”

“You’re not expressive enough to be a mime.”

“Fucking…” Levi smacks Eren’s good leg, grimacing up at him. “This a genuine fear you shithead and I’m trying to put this off.”

“We’ve got to do this like a band-aid… rip it off all at once.”

“Like the leg.”

“Yeah,” Eren sighs. He looks down at Levi, a sympathetic smile. “You can still flip people off, you know.”

“You’re putting it off.”

They both sigh, knowing that they can’t put it off any longer. Levi leans his head back to where he thinks it should be on Eren’s lap, adjusting himself so that his hand grips hard onto Eren’s good leg. “Just punch me if it you feel like you’re going to pass out,” Eren encourages, “I’ll stop.” Levi nods, sucking in a deep breath, His heart rate drops for a moment after the deep inhale before rising once again.

And Eren raises the scalpel up against his neck. The first cut, the sheet tells him, is into the windpipe, first through his skin and then into the trachea itself. There’s no punch, as the instructions suggest to use, so he makes do, keeping an eye on the prosthesis that is supposed to be placed in the hole afterwards to check for size. It’s only about an inch across, but the strap it’s attached to goes all the way around the neck.

He cuts where it instructs, and immediately Levi makes a pained whine and holds Eren’s knee in a tight vice, his fingers feeling as though they could break through the fabric of his jeans just as it is now.

But it’s not a punch, so Eren keeps going.

He feels the spot, and knows that it’s right when he hears the slight snap of cartilage underneath the end of the blade. It makes Eren cringe and Levi kick his leg against the metal. His lips move in a croaking “Fuck!” before he takes a few long breaths. The air whistles wetly through the cut. Eren knows he has to be quick.

He mops up some of the blood that comes up from the wound, and then continues to cut into the windpipe until he has a hole he thinks is slightly too small, but decent. Levi continues to thrash his legs, but it does nothing to interrupt the work Eren is doing in his skin.

Levi just… bleeds a lot, and his heart jumps dangerously from too high to far too low within a moment.

Eren decides that for a moment, it’s enough. He cuts away the last of the material of the throat, then sizes the prosthesis against it. It’s too small by about a tenth of an inch, and he’s glad it’s so small. It just means that the small patch of skin he’s left to stop the plastic from rubbing against a newly broken throat will have to only be trimmed back slightly.

“I need you to lift your head up,” Eren says weakly, but he ends up doing the work for Levi, who just groans in pain when Eren slips the tube into his throat. The whistling of air rushing in and out of his lungs through the hole is incredible strange.

That part, the paper suggests, should have taken around an hour. The time feels short, but after the amount of worrying and pandering Eren has done, he feels as though it could have easily taken twice that.

But at the very least, Levi could breathe after this.

He moves on to the next set of instructions. This one is more difficult. They tell him to cut the neck incredibly carefully, avoiding the major veins and nerves that run on either side of the neck. He picks up a cauterising machine and turns it on, first cutting a line almost straight across the skin, the smell of burning flesh rising up immediately—

Levi smacks him over the leg hard enough for Eren to shout out.

“Sorry,” he says after yelling, then stops. Luckily, he’s not bleeding too much, but the pain must be unbearable. The neck is sensitive, and the line runs from the left side to the right bleed profusely and almost seem to throb with pain.

Levi opens his eyes. They’re red, crusted over with salt, and Eren takes a piece of the gauze sitting in a pile and wipes his eyes. He knows how tiring it is.

“Feels weird,” Levi croaks. His voice is strange and half comes out of his throat, the breath rushing wetly through afterwards.

Eren really wishes that Levi were under anaesthesia. It’s only going to get worse.

“I’m surprised that you didn’t faint,” Eren admits, “I kept checking thinking you'd passed out. Do you want to stop?”

Levi opens out his palm and shakes it over Eren’s leg, almost like a head shaking from right to left. He takes that as a no, and so he starts up the machine again. Levi tilts his head back and breathes in deeply.

The machine burns his skin all over again. The grip on Eren’s knee is enough for more than bruising, more like haemorrhaging the muscle. The hot blade drags against skin, coming close to ribbed cartilage that feels ready to be snapped through in an instant. Eren takes it upon his own head to stop when the fresh wound comes to the opposite side of Levi’s neck, wiping it down as quickly as he can and throwing the bloody rags away.  He looks down at the instructions now covered in Eren's bloody fingerprints, and looks to the next step.

It tells him to create a flap of skin, avoiding all of the nerves and veins in the neck with names so complicated that Eren cannot even pronounce them, to expose the muscle that runs over the larynx and shows a detailed diagram, labelled with smaller steps showing where each one is underneath the pale skin.

He cannot do that. He’ll be running a machine that will burn the muscle and fat under Levi’s skin, the only things keeping his delicate nerves safe. If they touch he will most definitely pass out from the pain, and then what? Would he end up like Armin? Would he be dead before they could exchange another word, Eren forced to work on a cooling body until the voice overhead came and took it away?

He can't let it happen.

Eren stops. He lets everything slip from his hands, taking a moment to clean Levi’s neck and check his breathing. Everything has slowed down, and only when he stops does it begin to pick back up.

Putting the dirty pieces of gauze down on the tray, Eren suddenly notices a small box.

It’s another painkiller that Armin had won for him. Eren does not need it, his leg still numb and not causing trouble, and he picks it up in his hands and thinks for a moment, wondering why it has been given to him now, why it has been given to him so early.

The commentator never specifically said that this was for him; at least, that’s what Mikasa had made it sound like when she told him what had happened. If he wanted to, he could give it to Levi, stop the pain whilst he operated for a while… that might be enough.

He breathes out as he considers, looking around the room.

Mikasa has woken up from her daze, crying in pain but looking straight at Eren with a hint of relief. Ymir watches, talking to Krista and Annie, but their conversation is silent but obviously focused on Eren and Levi from the way they all stare. Hanji is the only one standing up, the closest to Eren and Levi, looking in shock at the situation, at the box in Eren’s hand.

Suddenly, he questions if there’s a real, hard reason why Hanji didn’t want Levi to be the one under the knife. He bleeds a lot, his heart races up and down with pain… he was sick earlier, had bouts of looking ill. But is that enough?

Looking down at the box, he’s unsure of what to do. Is this the right time, the right thing to do in general? He cannot decide which is more important; give Levi the injection and find out in time whether Hanji’s petrified gaze means nothing more than pure worry, or withhold the pain relief and hope that Levi can still pull through unharmed.

The delayed hit to the leg tells him that he has to do something... he's just not sure of which option holds the worse consequences for Levi.

 

 

~~**READER, THE CHOICE IS YOURS.** ~~

~~**DOES EREN GIVE LEVI HIS DOSE OF PAINKILLERS?** ~~

~~**YES, OR NO?** ~~

 

**DECISION MADE. CONTINUE TO NEXT CHAPTER.**


	17. OPTION: YES

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay whoops I'm a doofus. I thought I posted this on Wednesday night and I only just realised that it was a draft. So apologies, I was being a bit of an eejit.

The needle is clicked onto the end of the vial within seconds, Eren trying to recall how Levi had injected the dose into him earlier. The memory of Armin doing the same thing feels like a distant memory, and even his face has seemed to blur in his mind, even after such a short space of time. It's still painful to try and remember.

He remembers how Levi had immediately gone straight for the vein at his elbow, then pressed firmly on the spot where a speck of blood seeped to the surface. And so Eren tries to recreate it, lifting up Levi's left arm, the one without the IV dug into his forearm, and searches desperately over the pale skin where the light green should be so easily found.

Except it isn't. Eren runs his fingers along the skin and finds that it is s strange mixture between a paper-like scar and a tough skin. It's thin and weak, but rough in texture and covers wherever Levi's veins should be. Even up to the pit of the arm the strange and almost chicken-pox like scar covers every inch of skin that is not pale and slightly yellow. He drops the arm in frustration and picks up the right as carefully as he can. The IV snags the skin slightly, but Levi seems too concentrated on the pain in his throat to even notice.

His right is very similar, but there is a small patch of skin right above where the IV is that is clear, the light blue slightly raised from the pressure of extra fluid being pumped into the artery.Eren trieshis best to lean around and press the tip of the needle to the skin, then suddenly remembering to squeeze out the last of the air as Levi had done earlier, before replacing it back over the vein.

It doesn't go in first time. It just buries under the skin slightly and stops. Eren curses before bringing it back out and tries to re-aim the needle. The second time gets it; the skin cuts slightly and he presses on until he feels the needle slip in effortlessly.

Deciding that he's not sure how long this will last for, Eren puts about a third of the liquid in and then cuts the flow. He hopes it's enough, and when he withdraws the needle he presses his thumb over the cut, the digit covered in blood-- at least it's Levi's, he thinks.

Perhaps ten minutes later the beep of Levi's heart steadies, and the room seems to go into a new quiet. The commentator says nothing, which is a surprise to Eren, and it's a small mercy. He wasn't expecting that action to be so inconsequential. So he picks up the cauterising blade again, and turns on the machine.

Levi flinches when it is first brought into contact with his skin, but at least this time the heart beat does not race into the roof before dropping so hard that Eren feels as though Levi will pass out. Instead it quivers from up to down, and Levi grips his leg tightly, but with an almost impossible sense of determination to keep the pressure steady. There is no punch as Eren rolls back the flap of skin and cuts deeper, being careful not to dig too far underneath the small layer of fat on the neck. More and more harsh tendons are revealed, the pulse in the veins on either side of the jugular off by a millisecond from the beat on the monitor. Levi sighs when the machine is turned off, the sound whistling through the hole in his neck.

"Are you okay?" Eren asks. All he gets back in reply from Levi is a hum. He sighs back, taking a second to crack his knuckles and look around the room. Everyone watches, Hanji's gaze still the most intense, but it seems calmer than before; worried, but not terrified like before.

Next is the part he most dreads. He picks up another scalpel, glancing over at the paper and the small picture showing where to cut, before pressing the blade in the same spot. Levi groans in discomfort but his grip shows no change. He presses in.

This time, there is nowhere near as much blood. Instead air hisses out of the gap around the blade, then draws it back in as Levi's chest rises. There is no signal to stop, so Eren carries on. He makes a small incision, then pries apart the neck carefully. The flesh inside is a deep pink, and with one hand Eren reaches over to get a pair of scissors with a long handle, and forceps.

 _'This is usually done by two people,'_ the instructions tell him.

It's slow work, but Eren is incredibly careful and concentrates so hard that he feels a headache forming behind his unblinking eyes. One ear is always on the beep of the monitor, the other trying to find any little noise that comes from Levi. There is nothing. It takes a long time for Levi to even make another movement. The dull thump on Eren's left leg is enough to tell him that more of the injection is needed. He grabs the needle, looking over the bench to find that there is no spare needle, and wipes the blade clean of blood with a hopefully sterile piece of gauze before pressing the needle back into the same vein, except just above the last spot.

That's when he feels at tap on his shoulder.

Eren turns, Hanji standing over him with an expression like thunder. She screams at him, hands flailing around her head. But no words come out of her mouth. Instead her lips move and the air wavers but he cannot hear a word.

"I can't hear you," he says loudly. He watches Hanji's lips move.

' _Stop it.'_

She moves around and pulls the injection out of Levi's arm and scowls at Eren. "You can't help," he shouts at her, "do you want Levi killed?"

 **"Hanji,"** the commentator calls at almost the same moment, **"helping is against the rules."**

Her lips move again, frantic, but the commentator makes no noise afterwards. She shouts up at the ceiling, as though she were still talking to the voice. But no sound comes from either. Levi groans again, gripping onto Eren's knee and biting into his bottom lip.

Eren watches her, and it takes a few minutes for any action to be made. It takes two minutes for her to calm down and turn to Eren. Her lip movements are exaggerated.

' _No more,'_ she mouths, then turns to the IV and replaces the bag. She turns back to him. _' I am not helping.'_

Eren looks at her in confusion, but notices immediately what she is doing. The almost empty bag of fluid is placed into a dish, the liquid spilling out. Hanji dips the tip of the needle in the fluid and then draws some back, filling the vial completely. She then ejects about half onto the floor before filling it back up with more fluid. It's so dilated that Eren fears that it will have no effect at all. Hanji seems more satisfied, handing the injection back to Eren with a weak grimace.

' _Not too much,'_ she mouths before heading back over and sitting next to Mikasa.

He looks at her in confusion but continues. The commentator has said nothing and so he takes it as a good sign. He pushes half into Levi's arm and puts it by his side. Ten minutes later, and he returns to Levi's neck.

Eren feels as though he is hacking away rather than operating. The edges of his cuts are not smooth, but covered in edges. One more injection and a lot of cursing later and Eren cuts one final part, and feels the piece of flesh one hand is holding on to lift away. He pulls the bloody mess through the gap in Levi's throat. Levi's eyes open, and his mouth widens in a scream that doesn't form. A wet exhale of air whistles through every gap.

Next comes stitching it all back up. He tries his best to do every stitch as the instructions tell him; through and leave two centimetres spare, then around, then underneath at least three times. The first few are terrible and messy. The first one falls apart entirely. But at least this does not leave Levi howling in pain without any sound, for the first time, his movements are calm, his heart rate steady. This is the easiest bit.

Eren only notices that Levi has passes out when he rolls the skin back over the neck almost an hour later. His heartbeat is too faint. Eren watches it for a short while, doing up the neck as best he can, one eye always on the small peaks every beat causes.

When the last stitch goes in, it almost completely stops.

**"Congratulations, Eren and Levi for completing your turn!"**

Hanji rushes over, her voice panting. She slaps Levi's cheek twice and looks up at Eren. "You idiot," she scolds. "I told you he couldn't!"

"He insisted!"

But Hanji wasn't listening. She pushes Eren away from Levi so that his legs swing over the side, and tilts Levi's head back. Her hands cross, fingers threaded though, and she places her hands over Levi's heart. "Count!" She shouts.

With each push the numbers climb higher and higher. Mikasa stumbles forward the best she can. Krista and Annie are not far behind.

"Thirty," Eren calls, and Hanji looks up.

"You do the mouth, he'd fucking kill me if I do it."

Eren nods, pressing his lips down onto Levi's and he realises how cold they are. It's not the same as doing a course when he had been a lifeguard at the pool last summer. It feels about as far away from a stupid practice as it can get. He forces air in twice before lifting his head back up, Hanji pumping away again.

"Thirty," and Eren pushes his lips back again. He breathes out three times and hopes that the one time more than needed will do something. The compressions start and Eren dips his fingers under Levi's nose to see if any air rushes out.

"Thirty," Hanji mutters, and this time when Eren forces air into Levi's lungs, he feels the lips twitch and hears Hanji cry out in relief. "Someone grab the IV, he still needs it."

Annie slips around the bench and rolls the IV across the floor. Hanji picks up Levi in her arms, struggling against the weight but still managing. Mikasa grabs seen by the waist and drags him down to the floor, half walking with him and half carrying him back onto the bench. They move faster than Hanji and Annie who stick together to keep the needle in Levi's limply hanging arm.

Eren gets to the bench first, and it is too small for Levi to lie down without Levi's head ending up on his lap again. He lifts a hand to wipe his wet eye, then looks up to Hanji.

She slaps him hard around the face.

"I fucking... I fucking told you that he can't!"

"He insisted!"

"But you shouldn't have let him!" Hanji's voice goes higher in frustration. She rubs one hand over her eyes and stomps in a small circle befor pointing straight at Eren. "He can't do that, he's too fucking weak and you let him!"

"E's noh his foh'rh!" Mikasa shouts, and then clamps her mouth shut as she realises that her words leave strangely. She scowls at Hanji.

Hanji's lip twitches as she listens to the words. Her eyes fall back on Eren. "He can't go through any more. This... This might already be too much." She crouches before Levi and Eren. "You need to fucking watch him. If I'm not around, watch him. He can't... He... This is a lot. A laryngectomy isn't small, and with the..." She glares at him hard. "Why did you give it to him?"

Eren looks down at Levi. His breathing is shallow but his chest rises. It's a comfort to see it move so clearly. "He was in pain. I couldn't do it."

"Eren," she says sternly, "you never give anyone any medicine unless they tell you to do so. Especially not Levi." He stiffens at her words. "It wasn't the surgery I was worried about. It was the fact that it was you. You have the painkiller and I had a feeling that... And I was right." She stands up, looking down at Eren. "What you did can still kill him."

"Why? What did I do?"

Hanji sighs and rubs her hand over her head. She's so sullen, so quiet. It's painful to watch her stumble around and collapse on the far side of the bench by Levi's feet. Her head buries into her knees. "Ask him. If he wakes up," she mumbles.

Eren swallows hard.

 **"Well, that was exciting,"** the voice laughs. **"And now, finally, would Ymir and Annie please take the stage and open the final envelope."**

No one watches as Annie and Ymir walk to the bench.


	18. NO OPTION.

The most noticeable noise in the room is the sound of the envelope being ripped in two, the grave cut running through the top slit open with a clean blade from one of the trays. Annie stands back slightly from Ymir, who takes out the paper and looks it over.

She chuckles. “It’s not bad. I can deal with that.”

“Ymir what—“

Ymir breaks Krista off. “Remove all digits on both hands.” She passes the paper over to Annie. “I can do it. No problem.”

Annie glares at the paper. Her eyebrows furrow over the eyes skipping back and forth over the few pages clipped together.

Eren knows that she’s young, but the way she is taking this is unusual. Not a word has been said on the fact that she had been promised leave at the start of the game, nor has she forcefully inquired about her two dead friends. It’s weird. Eren finds her strange; aloof and standoffish, yet still somehow involved in everything she has been seen in so far. What little comes out of her mouth seems to be enough to engage her within whatever situation is closest. She trails Ymir, her eyes moving up and then back down to the page without much emotion.

Perhaps it’s already been drained out of her; perhaps she has removed it from herself… Eren cannot tell.

“I’ll strap myself in.” Ymir jumps back up onto the cleaned bench, and waits for Annie to finish reading. She’s remarkably unphased; the wolfish grin sticks to her lips, and she makes frequent eye contact with Krista, and sometimes Hanji and Mikasa.

“It doesn’t say a lot.” Annie turns herself so that Ymir can look over her shoulder at the paper. They read over it in complete silence, then talk quietly, before Ymir shrugs.

“Do it whatever way you think best.”  She smiles over a grimace, eyes drifting towards Krista as though she remembers something. “As long as they come off.”

Eren watches Annie nod, but as soon as a blade is in her hand all sound seems to stop. He watches her lips move, and Ymir replying with a smile but hears nothing of the conversation. It seems mercifully quick. Ymir’s right hand outstretched first, Annie seems to pull the pinkie finger as far out of the joint as she can before pressing the blade into the dent and wiggling around the end of the bone to try and cut through. Both of their faces contort in different kinds of pain, but within a few minutes the finger hangs. Held on by only a small section of skin, Annie cuts it away and throws the dead limb onto the floor as her face grows passive. Ymir barely flinches.

This carries on much the same. Annie works from the fifth finger to the thumb on the first hand, taking her time to check that she is doing it correctly, pressing gauze to the wounds when they bleed like mad and stopping to roll her neck when the right hand is completely de-limbed. The thumb seems the most difficult; Ymir tugs at the digit herself to try and pull it out far enough, and with one swift stab Annie pushes the blade through the skin, the thumb jolting out of the socket and hanging limply on the wrong side of the blade. She cuts it off in a circular sawing motion, taking the bone and flesh of piece by piece until it drops onto the bench and rolls for a few inches. Annie picks it up and throws it by the rest, Ymir’s lips parting over her clenched teeth as though she is hissing from the pain, her fingerless hand drawn up to her chest.

They talk for a few moments, and Eren takes the time to look down to Levi. His head is facing straight up, the cut along his neck bleeding and incredibly raw. But he’s breathing; shallow and shaking… but still breathing. Everything seems pale, slightly green. He shows no signs of waking up.

Movement in the corner of Eren’s eye is what drags his gaze up. Ymir has jumped up from the bench, shaking both arms out and jumping up and down on the spot. Annie looks at her from the bench and waits. Her hands are covered in blood, her dark blue school uniform slightly dark in patches.

Three minutes later and Ymir calms enough to sit back down and suffer through it. Annie threads a needle through Ymir’s deep cuts and stitches them up as best as she can. It looks more like a temporary stitch more than a long lasting one, little bunches of wire replaced with a long thread that brings the skin together and ties it down roughly. Ymir flexes the wrist of her right hand once Annie is done, and winces. They all know that the other hand has to be done, and that the pain must be horrible, but it feels like too little.

“She doesn’t deserve to come off so lightly,” Hanji growls under her breath. Krista immediately turns.

“She’s done nothing to you.”

“Still doesn’t mean I have to like her.” Hanji pulls her legs closer to her chest, and looks at Levi. “I think she’s vile.”

“Ymir’s honest.” Krista turns to look at Hanji, and then at Levi. “More than some people in here.”

“What’re you implying?”

Krista shrugs. “Nothing. I’m just saying that at least Ymir’s been honest about our occupation and our reason for being here.” She rolls her neck and stares out at Ymir as another finger comes off. “The two of you’ve said nothing this whole time. You’ve avoided it. I know that you’re a doctor, but what’s he? What did your other friend do?”

“That’s none of your business.” Hanji’s voice rises. “If Erwin wanted to tell everyone, he would have done. The same with Levi.”

“But Levi can’t tell anyone,” Eren rasps. His eyes drop to the head resting on his lap. “What happens if I’ve fucked up so badly that he can’t tell me? What happens if he won’t wake up because I made a mistake that I should have avoided? That I should have said no to because I should have known that he couldn’t. He said he trusts me. So what?” He breathes roughly through his nose, pushing back tears and snapping his head to glare at Hanji. “Is it still right for me to not know? Is it really that difficult?”

Hanji purses her lips, darting her tongue out to scrape over them as she thinks. “It’s not for me to say.”

“I have to know!”  he growls, “you can’t keep this from me. What happens if I screw up again? I have to know.” Hanji stays silent, watching ahead of her, the last of Ymir’s fingers being removed from her hand with a sharp tug and a violent slash of the knife.  The blood gets wiped away, and Annie starts on the stitches. Hanji just watches. “Tell me,” he repeats, voice cracking, “I have to—“

“Fucking stop!” Running her hands over her face, Hanji scrunches her eyes up tight, scowling into the back of her hands and avoiding the sight in front of her. She twists her palms over and digs her fingers under the lenses of her glasses and into her eyes as hard as she can, until she can see lines across the darkness and a dull pressure builds up. He huffs out air, swallowing thickly as she tries to think. And then she pulls her hands away and avoids the glares of Krista and Eren and Mikasa, of Annie and Ymir, still finishing off the final few stitches and slowly gathering gauze and microporous tape to try and wrap up the wounds. “It’s…” she doesn’t blink, “the… his liver. It can’t cope with any more, and when you gave him the injection I thought that maybe it would—“ Hanji scratches the back of her head. “He, uh... Levi’s an addict.”

“To what?”

“Er…” Hanji sighs, “anything, everything; drink, prescription pills, we aren’t sure. It was enough to land him in hospital a few months ago. This was supposed to be an intervention, to find out exactly what he’s still…” Her laugh comes out as a snort, a burst of air through her lips and out between her fingers. The movement of her head from left to right distracts from the fact that she looks about ready to cry, or smack her other clenched palm into the floor or the side of the bench. “Fuck!”

Eren brings up his right hand, rubbing the knuckle of his thumb under his eye to collect the damp before resting it on the arm crossed over Levi’s chest. He’s not sure what to say. Does the sombre look in his eye tell Hanji and Mikasa and Krista that he can’t let Levi go, that he cannot let someone else die in front of him? Does it tell them that he can’t deal with having a death on his hands?

 **“Congratulations ladies on completing your task!”** The commentator booms, its voice strong and fresh with renewed excitement. Ymir stumbles over to Krista, looking pale and worn. Annie, unsure of what to do, sticks behind her and warily looks to a glaring and red-eyed Hanji. **“Well, it seems that there was only one that has fallen to this round, so far, and for that I applaud you all. This group has been exceedingly strong. But!”** the voice chuckles. It’s low, rumbling. It stirs the air in Eren’s chest, makes the fluid in Levi’s clear bag shiver; the feeling of the steady pulse of the sound making his blood run cold. **“I’m starting to notice that tempers are starting to fray between you all, which is a shame.”** It huffs dramatically. **“It means that you cannot work together like adults. And that’s why I’d like to ask you all to work alone from now on. From this point forward there will be no pairs, no groups. You will be playing for yourself and no one else.”** The commentator hums. **“Much like a game of cards, wouldn’t you say?”**

The lights click off as the voice finishes, the sound of metal clanging and wind whistling around the room the only thing Eren can hear. His eyes cannot adjust to the pitch black after such a blinding whiteness, and it’s binding, constricting. He shifts his legs and feels Levi’s heavy head roll clumsily, the breath drawn out through his throat in a high noise that sounds damn and unnatural. He feels a hand press onto his right shoulder, and even in the darkness he knows that it is Mikasa’s familiar hand that clenches into his collarbone.

And when the lights rise, they are back on the old, round stage in the centre of the room, and within that stands a dark wooden table, a billowing figure with no discernible face dressed in a black suit and low-slung hat, and shuffling a deck of cards decorated with the facades of screaming faces, billowing around on the thick card. The chairs are pulled out slightly, and with one dark hand the shadowy dealer indicates to the seats.

**“Ladies and gentlemen, are you all familiar with the games 'Twenty-One’, and ‘Russian Roulette?”**

 

**OPTION REDUNDANT.**


	19. NO OPTION.

**“Would you all please take a seat around the table.”**

The commentator’s voice slips into the background as everyone begins to situate themselves around the table. Krista and Ymir are quick to take the spaces to the shadowy dealer’s left hand side, Annie next to Ymir. Eren shakes Levi’s shoulder lightly. “You've got to wake up,” he says, his voice low and hoarse. Hanji gets up from her spot on the floor, crouching on her knees to rub her hand along Levi’s arm.

“Come on,” she rouses.

He stirs on Eren’s lap, eyes clenching shut and forming a deep scowl that only grows as soon as his eyes crack open. Levi’s lips part and he squints against the low lights overhead, bringing the right arm still attached to the IV up to his face. It takes a moment for the pain to catch up with him, but as soon as he tries to swallow the taste of bile sitting in the back of his throat it gets to him. He's like the walking dead; not himself and barely conscious.

Eren has to catch Levi as he rolls sideways and rough gags force their way out of the damaged neck and silently to the mouth. The coughs that follow are strangely silent, a rough respire of air that bursts phlegm out of the hole in Levi’s throat, striped with clotted and dark red blood. It comes out of his mouth, he snorts it through his nose and silently groans when he clears the gunk from his neck with his fingers. Levi is solemn, pale. He takes his time, manoeuvring around the awful clenching pain in his neck and the woozy thought of having to balance his skull on something that feels so weak and broken, one hand gripping Eren’s leg as though his muscles remembered the exact moment the pain had gotten too bad.

“Take it slowly,” Hanji encourages. Mikasa comes to help Hanji and Eren, all trying their best to pull Levi up from the bench and to one of the chairs. Eren’s hand rests on the centre of Levi’s back as he pushes him upwards into the air, Hanji wrapping her arm around Levi’s shoulders, one arm encouraging one of his to grab onto her. Eren takes a hold of Mikasa’s shoulder and, with a weak smile, hobbles along behind Levi, the IV held firmly by Mikasa. Hanji drops Levi into the second seat on the dealer’s right hand side, Mikasa taking the IV and positioning it and Eren on Levi's right side, and taking her position in the seat between Eren and Annie. Hanji takes the far right side next to The Dealer.

 **“Well, now that you are all seated, we can begin.”** The voice has shifted, and it seems to come from the shadowy figure at the head of the table. It reaches an indistinguishable hand to the hat perched on its head, and bows down slightly. **“Welcome to the Table. This is The Dealer.”** The figure brings the hand to its chest. **“The Dealer is here to stop foul play, regulate the game, and punish those who break the rules. You may not touch or attempt to talk to The Dealer, and doing so will result in your expulsion from The Game Show of Death.”** The Dealer seems to look out from underneath the brim of its hat at each player, and with unseeable eyes keeps the contact away from the stack of cards it picks up and shuffles skilfully.

**“The game this round is simple. You will all receive two cards.”**

The Dealer demonstrates, turning the top two cards around in its dark and fog-like palm before placing them on the table in front of it. Its hand swipes over the backs of the cards, the faces pointing up after it passes. It’s a King and an Ace. A perfect twenty-one.  **“The aim of the game is to get a total as close to, but not surpassing, twenty-one. The two cards you will be given at the start of every round will be unchangeable, however,”** a hand moves over the two cards again, but this time the King has been replaced with the Four of Spades, **“if you are unhappy with your hand, you may pick up another card; a ‘Twist’, which will allow you to add to the total of your hand. If you are happy with your hand then you ‘Stick’.”** The dealer picks up a card from the pile in his hand, and turns it around in his fingers for the group to see. The Dealer places it face up; the Six of Clubs. **“You may only have one Twist, and only one chance to raise your score. But if you go over twenty-one you are out. This is called a ‘Bust’.”**

The cards are collected and shuffled back into the pile. They flick between The Dealer’s hands as the voice continues to talk. **“If more than one person ends up with a Bust at the end of the round, or two or more people have the joint lowest score, then these people will have another separate round to determine who loses.”** The cards are placed gently on the table in front of The Dealer. **“There will be three main rounds, and by the end of those three rounds three people will no longer be with us.”** The Dealer reaches underneath the table and brings out a revolver. He places it on the table next to the cards, the barrel facing the deck. **“Those who lose a round will remove themselves from The Game Show of Death, and if they refuse then, I promise you, the method of removal will be a lot, lot more violent.”**

 **“Rules for this round!”** The Dealer pulls the cards back into its hands, shuffling them again as it watches the group. **“The first: only you are allowed to see your cards until all hands are asked to be shown. Having anyone else touch or look, or ask about your cards before this time will mean immediate removal from The Game Show of Death for both parties. This also includes any form of touching between players. Any physical contact is forbidden, and no player can pick up or turn over cards for another person. Doing so will be considered a form of cheating.”**

Ymir makes a disgusted noise, lifting up her stubby hands and shrugging her shoulders. “How the fuck will I be able to pick anything up?” she asks. The Dealer faces her, its hands halted.

 **“Maybe you should have thought of that before you volunteered for the last round,”** if reprimands. Ymir shakes her head and scowls in frustration, slumping back into the seat. She stares at the figure at the head of the table. The Dealer turns back to the front and shuffles again. **“The second rule: the person who gets the lowest score, or a Bust, will remove themselves using this gun. No other person may help, but a person can refuse to do it of their own accord, which will be considered a rule break and therefore result in immediate removal... One more brutal and lasting than a simple gunshot wound. A Bust overrides a low score, and unless two or more people get a Bust in one round, that person will immediately be the one to be leaving. Third rule: all picture cards are worth ten. An Ace is worth either a one or eleven, depending on what you want it to be. Either is acceptable. The others are worth their numerical value. There will be no argument over totals; they will ultimately be decided by The Dealer. And the fourth rule!”**

The voice booms out of The Dealer. It places the deck of cards back onto the table and readjusts its already neat suit. It seems to be smirking under the hat, mocking the group who, excluding Levi, stare at the figure. **“A person who gets a perfect score of twenty-one with either two or three cards will be allowed to sit out all of the following rounds, and will automatically become one of the four people to move away from the Table after the three rounds end.”**

Eren sucks in a breath. For the voice to explicitly say that there is a way he can avoid doing this makes it all the more risky. He can try to get twenty-one, risk every round for the perfect number that will get him out and move him on… but it’s dangerous, and he’s not sure how many people will play along. A glance around the table reveals more wary glares than determination, a play-safe that he’s not so sure he can follow. They're asking for luck more than action, and even Ymir has resigned herself, head hanging down as she stares into the two palms sitting in her lap.

**“Begin round one!”**

A sharp rustle of the cards brings Eren’s head back up. The Dealer expertly shuffles the deck again and dishes them out clockwise from the top of the table, starting at Krista and effortlessly sliding one card to each person before starting again and dealing the second card to everyone. The Dealer places the rest of the deck on the table, and signals with one hand for everyone to pick up their hand. Ymir scowls and mutters under her breath, not even bothering to attempt to pick up the cards she cannot get a hold of without fingers. “Just praying for a good hand,” she sighs to herself, maybe to Krista.

Eren picks up his cards, and holds in his breath the best he can. It’s a good hand, not perfect, but good enough and solid. The Ten of Clubs and the Queen of Spades are his two cards, making a total of twenty out of the available twenty-one, and he graciously takes them and puts them face down back on the table. The others do not give much away, except for Hanji who scowls at her deal. He knows that Mikasa is good at hiding her feelings; a perfect poker face if ever he’s seen one… and he’d imagine that Levi would be the same if not for the way he has to force himself to stay awake, his concentration put entirely on keeping himself away and lucid as he shakily reached out to look at the cards. He looks as though he wants to swallow the thought of his numbers and hide them away, but stops himself when the pain is too much. He just grimaces through the round.

The Dealer holds the cards out to Krista, an offering to see if she would like another. “Twist,” she says, immediately getting another card placed in front of her, face up; the Eight of Diamonds.

“Stick,” Ymir mutters dully before The Dealer moved onto Annie.

“Twist.” Another card gets put up on the table. It’s the Four of Diamonds, and Annie seems quietly pleased with her hand. She takes her third card and brings it to the others.

“Schteck.” The Dealer passes over Mikasa.

“Stick,” Eren repeats. He looks over to Levi.

His mouth is open, air escaping through his lips as though words are trying to come out. But all there is is a whistle, air escaping messily and painfully. Levi instead points weakly at the cards, and The Dealer flicks one over. It’s the Six of Hearts.

Hanji takes a long moment to think it through her choice. Her eyes flicker between the cards in her hand and the pile, and she sucks air in between her lips and through her teeth before talking. “Stick—no, no twist. No. Stick.” The Dealer pauses for a moment before moving the remaining pile back onto the table.

 **“Reveal your cards,”** the commentator says. Everyone flicks their cards over, except for Ymir. The Dealer reaches one arm over and does it for her after a few seconds of waiting.

Eren’s twenty is one of three. Mikasa and Krista both have them, Ymir luckily finding herself with an eighteen.

Levi has twenty-one. His eyes are the widest Eren has seen them, relief just about the most prominent thing on this face. His eyes shut, air escaping his nose as his head rolls back onto the backboard of the chair. No one is sure if he even has the energy to look at anyone else’s cards.

Hanji’s doesn’t look so good.

Her total is a firm seventeen. But it's still not enough; one behind Ymir's it is the lowest score on the table... One round in and she's already lost. Hanji laughs indignantly as she buries the heels of her palms into her eyes, shaking her head. The Dealer pushes the gun over the table until it sits in front of her.

“The odds weren’t good.” She chuckles, a hint of sadness mixed in with the overwhelming feeling of resignation that rolls off of her. Hanji looks as though she wants to lean over, to touch Levi and reassure him despite the look on his worn-out face indicating everything other than him being lucid and able to comprehend the situation. Instead, she says his name under her breath. “Levi? Are you feeling okay?” His head lulls back further in the chair, face pained but somewhat calm and completely out of it. It’s sad, but understandable. Eren understand how consuming pain is, how tiring it can be. And he made it worse for Levi, even without knowing it. All he can do it watch Levi, watch Hanji, forehead furrowed and eyes upset as she gently pats his arm from her seat… and then pulls the gun up to her chest.

“Hanji, I—“ Hanji dismisses Eren’s words with a wave and a falsely bright smile.

“It had to be someone,” she tells him. “And it just so happened to be me.” Hanji gulps air into her throat, dragging it down heavily. The gun in her hands feels cold and foreign, the face across the table the same. She grimaces at Ymir before shrugging her shoulders and looking to Levi, a fondness in her eyes that has always been present, but hidden well. “I’m glad he doesn’t have to see this,” she rasps. Eren watches her, Mikasa holding her breath behind him.

Hanji pulls down the safety and presses the barrel to the underside of her jaw. She faces ahead and looks at no one in particular. And she laughs once, sort and loud; so out of place in the quiet and dim gloom of the room. The glasses on her nose slip slightly, and she pushes them back up with her free hand before bracing the table with it. “If something happens to Levi, I’m gonna haunt your asses for the rest of your poxy lives.”

The words are not directed to anyone, but Eren still acknowledges it with a nod. He bows his head, the shot of the gun surprisingly quiet, as though a silencer has been placed on the end, or the flesh and bone pressed immediately to the metal is enough to drown out the sound of an explosion of metal against a human body.

The chair clatters onto the ground backwards from the force of the reeling shot, the body in it slumped wetly. Nothing comes to move it. Blood seeps onto the floor, wet and chunky around the head of the body, the rest pooling nicely on the concrete from the exit wound. Levi is out, unable to see, hear—Eren takes it in for him. The body is a reminder to keep Levi safe and not let this happen. Eren has someone here to help him, but Levi has nothing of his past life left in the room. He doesn’t have to play, he doesn’t have to see. This round can pass over and he can come back stronger and more ready for it, the lots more likely to be drawn… but the final prize closer.

The Dealer stands and retrieves the gun from the ground, the handle and barrel covered in blood. It places it back in the centre of the table and its arms gather the cards from the first round before shuffling them back into the pile. The dark wood of the table gains a fresh stain.

 **“As Levi managed to get twenty-one points in the first round, he is exempt. Begin round two.”** The commentator’s voice from The Dealer sounds slightly mechanical and flat, but it continues. The smoky frame in a suit moves the cards before dealing out the cards in the same fashion as before. It misses Levi and the final, empty space on the first deal, and then the second.

Everyone collectively picks them up.

Eren’s cards aren’t good. The Nine of Spades and the Three of Clubs sit before him to give him a total of twelve out of twenty-one. He flips them back over, face down, and tries to hide the disappointment.

It’s a bad hand. It’s a low hand, a hand that can easily get him out. But the option to twist and get another card is tempting. The others are too expressionless to be able to figure out whether this is a good choice or not. He knows that his face gives him away, constantly too emotional to hide any thoughts, but the others… he doesn’t know.

“Twist.” The Dealer hands a card over to Krista. It’s the Queen of Hearts. Her face says nothing to him.

“Stick.” Ymir repeats the last turn she made, her cards still unturned and untouched before her.

“Twist.” Both Annie and Mikasa get another card; the Seven and Four of Diamonds in that order.

Eren looks at The Dealer, and thinks about his choice.

The card is right there in front of him, and the odds are good. He’d have to go through every number card except a ten before he’d get a Bust… all he’d have to really worry about is the picture cards. But is it worth it? What if he misses the mark, goes over twenty-one and risks everything? The others’ faces say nothing either way to sway his decision. So what if it is just him? What if they all have high scores and Eren… Eren still has a low twelve. Does he Stick and hope that someone else has gone over, or does he Twist and try to get the best he can, even if it means running the risk of overshooting?

The Dealer thrusts the deck forward towards Eren, encouraging him to make a decision fast. It stares at him, waits for an answer that only comes after it repeats the question.

**"Eren. Stick or Twist?”**

**READER, THE CHOICE IS YOURS.**

**DOES EREN STICK TO HIS CURRENT HAND, OR TWIST TO GET A THIRD CARD?**

**STICK, OR TWIST?**

 


	20. TWIST

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (If I don't update regularly after today just completely berate me for it. I'm a bundle of sleep and poor life choices at the moment but that's no excuse and I'm sorry.)

**YOU CHOSE TO TWIST.**

 

 

“Twist.”

Eren pinches his eyes shut as The Dealer hands another card over to him, slowly turning over the thick card. His Queen of Spades and Two of Clubs rest in his hand.

He suddenly feels panicked. His gut instinct picks up, the rise of tension forcing its way through his abdomen and into his gullet like acid, burning him up and making every muscle clench just in time for him to realise that he has made the wrong decision. His eyes widen as the card flip, a flash of red being noticeable first… and suddenly the picture appears.

The Queen of Diamonds. Bust.

**“Reveal your cards.”**

He smacks his hand onto the table, cursing loudly before rubbing his hands over his face and leaning far back into his chair. Twenty-two. The panic comes back, a wave this time, and it traps him in a bubble that he cannot seem to leave. He doesn’t notice when The Dealer turns Ymir’s cards to reveal a perfect twenty-one, and even though everyone else stares at her, Eren doesn’t see that Krista is sitting stock still, staring at her own cards with an expression that matches his own… cards that match his total too.

Krista’s hands immediately rise to her own face, the heels passing along underneath her eyes as she sobs. An arm slips around her, Ymir’s, and her first instinct is to drift into it and hide her frustration in her palm before smacking it on Ymir’s chest.

“It’s not fair,” she whispers, “what if we can’t—“

Ymir cuts her off with a harsh shush of air, then glares over the table at Eren. “It’s not over,” she says, “you’ve got one more go.”

 **“Ah! Ymir, congratulations on your score! You are exempt from the last round… But—“** the commentator tuts, **“two busts, how sad.”** The voice laughs as The Dealer collects the cards from around the table. It shuffles them again neatly. **“Then I’d like to propose a deciding round; starring Krista and Eren.”** The Dealer throws its head back in time to match the voice, Mikasa simultaneously leaning over to check Eren’s cards.

“No…” Eren catches her eyes and shrugs. “E’en.” His name sounds muffled in her lips. He grinds his teeth together, takes a hard look at her and then Levi.

“I’m not losing this,” he concludes.

The light shifts. Already dim lighting swivels towards him, the hidden source almost blinding and directly in his face. He blinks against it, tries to see beyond it, but the only things he can see are also in the light; Krista, and The Dealer. Everyone else is cast into darkness.

A card falls in front of him, and he immediately picks it up.  The Nine of Clubs. He sighs. Not bad. Krista’s face says nothing except for the tears still sitting on her lashes, her lips drawn up tight together as she concentrates on her second card. Again, nothing changes in her eyes.

Eren cannot hold back the grimace that comes with his second card. The red card comes with a five, and leaves him at a total of fourteen.  It’s not enough.

“Twist,” Krista calls back, her voice steady and strong. She’s confident. She’s confident and it blows Eren out of the water harder than it should, even as The Dealer turns her last card painfully slow… and the Ace of Hearts reveals itself.

Fourteen. That’s only a seven. Anything over and he’s out, he’s dead.

But he has to try.

“Twist.”

His card comes with the same painstaking slowness. It’s turned and then dropped onto the table. The Two of Spades. His hand is pathetic. Sixteen, not enough… the chances are slim, small. He rubs his hand over his face again, pushing the tears back into his eyes with his fingertips and turning to where he thinks Mikasa’s eyes are. It’s desperate.

**“Reveal your hands.”**

Neither player does. Krista swallows heavily in the back of her throat and grimaces over at Eren. He turns from the darkness to his right to look back at her. She looks as though she wants to say something, but can’t quite find the words. Her mouth hangs, twitches slightly, and then she clamps it shut with a clack of her teeth.

 “My hand isn’t good,” she plainly states.

“Same.”

“And I’m not going down without a fight.”

He nods. “Same.”

The commentator growls. **“Reveal your hands!”**

Eren turns his over, and Krista watches him do it. Her eyes widen impossibly wide with desperate fear, the whites too bright and visible in the light and every vein in them flashes and grows dark.

Krista pounces over the table in an attempt the grab the gun in front of her, someone shouting out from beyond the darkness at the sudden movement. She takes it in her right hand and faces the barrel up towards Eren, the click of the trigger loud in the room.

**“Enough!”**

The Dealer leaps from their seat and violently tears the gun from Krista’s hand. It comes out, covered in skin and fresh, bright blood, and as The Dealer slips past her to stand on the table, she violently screams, pulling the hand missing strips of skin and chunks of flesh into her chest and rolling over the table. Ymir leaps into the light to aid her, but a swift kick to the face sends her flying back into the black with a yelp. A hand grabs Eren’s arm, and he turns to see Mikasa holding onto him tightly, panic setting into her features.

**“Krista. Your hand!”**

The commentator’s voice is no longer calm, but an angry, feral rumble. Krista looks up to the source—The Dealer—and watches it with desperate eyes, flicking her gaze to the gun. It crouches low on the table, resting on its haunches, and she slowly slides back with Ymir’s help, transfixed. It never leaves as she reaches to pick up her cards and turn them over.

Eren sighs in relief when he sees that she has the Ten of Clubs and the Four of Hearts. Either way it is not enough.

**“Krista, since you have the losing hand, you have a choice. You take this gun and you do the job… or you will be punished.”**

She blinks once… and then slowly reaches forward to grab the gun. Her eyes grow wide, Ymir slipping back with a shake of her head and a low choke. But Krista continues, taking the gun in her hand, out of the grasp of The Dealer and weighs it in her palm. She takes it, and almost plays with the weight, almost comfortable with it. Eren can only see her face, the contemplation of the decision… and the hunched body of The Dealer.

Krista slips her index finger through to rest against the trigger—and swiftly points it at the crouched figure in desperation. It goes off with a shocking bang and yet The Dealer does not react. The suit melts off of the figure, the smoke lifting as the body inside leaps at Krista and pulls her up from her seat before she even has the chance to turn to barrel onto Eren. She is lifted up with a piercing scream. A bony hand fists around her neck, lifting her higher into the air over the table almost effortlessly, giving everyone a perfect view of its eviscerated chest, its pallid skin and the human eyes that stand out, unblinking and unnaturally large, against protruding cheekbones and above drawn back lips-- the thing inside The Dealer's suit. The teeth inside part as it snarls, the thin arm somehow managing to hold Krista higher in the air above the table even as she wriggles and kicks its hollow chest.

“Get the fuck off her!” Ymir wraps her. It kicks it out hard and  she flies back again with its unnatural strength. Eren watches it, dumbfounded, not even daring to blink as the creature that has melted out of The Dealer’s suit runs a finger of its spare hand from between Krista’s collarbones to her navel lightly.

 **“Krista. You broke a rule. You must not interact with The Dealer in any way.”** The creature holding onto her throat opens its mouth, a long, purple tongue lolling out. **“Any last words?”**

Krista paws uselessly against the creature’s hand, the words unable to form as she slowly loses breath. Her face grows redder with every desperate pant, and she tries to talk but it comes out as a choke. The commentator chuckles… and the creature runs its finger down the same path.

Her scream is piercing, and it comes with a rattle. The table shifts as she swings uselessly from side to side in the creature’s grasp, only getting worse as the long, dirty nail digs further past the fabric of her black shirt and into the skin below. It drags down; past her chest, along the crease of her rib-cage and onto her stomach. Krista kicks out weakly into the creature holding her. It stops. Her foot lodges between two exposed ribs dripping with its grey, rotting flesh. It stares at her, unblinking, eyes wide and dry… but focused. And then it continues to drag its nail down into her stomach.

The contents spill out messily between the split in her skin and muscle. It’s unlike anything Eren has seen. There is little blood except for what comes from the wound, but every organ bulges out as soon as the skin comes undone. The membrane holding the intestines splits, and it unravels from within Krista, falling down onto the legs of her trousers, around the arm of the creature. Her stomach flops out, and organs he cannot begin to name go along with it. Krista spasms in his grasp, her eyes rolling back into her head… and she stops moving.

But the creature is nowhere near finished. It lies her down on the table, enough for Ymir to come up and grab her hand and repeat Krista’s name in an increasingly frustrated tone. It tears the skin apart until she is opened up like a butterfly, and he begins to slowly bring each organ out and place it neatly on the table. Krista is dead, she has to be, but the humiliation seems far worse. It unfurls the intestine, sits the kidneys and liver, the stomach, by her sides, and then crouches between her legs to reach one arm up into her chest. It tugs, the body shifting on the table, and with a squelch the creature brings out a lung and dumps it. The next one follows, the heart not far behind. The creature sits back and slowly trails its unblinking eyes over everyone. The blood is spattered up both arms and along its pale chest, some even on its neck and face. Eren gulps, trying to turn his eyes away but the stare of the creature that was hidden inside The Dealer is strong and so deep in the uncanny valley that it makes him shiver.

Then, without warning, the creature stands up and shuffles back over to The Dealer’s empty clothing still crumpled on the table, leaving Krista's body hollow and her face still stuck in a silent scream. It reaches out and picks up the hat, long fingers running blood along the peak , and the smoke that had been covering its features starts to dissolve back over the body. With each item of clothing, the dark smog gets thicker and darker… but the memory of deep-set and wide eyes still remains, and now every glare from The Dealer feels deep and unnerving.

Ymir is in some state of shock. Her face is set, almost unemotional, but her hand grips Krista’s slowly greying one with a rough kind of care that seems too sweet for her. She breathes in slowly, the sound shuddering, before sitting back down onto her chair with her hand still interlaced. At least she does not have to play, but she is no less involved.

"I am winning this," she hisses to the group. It's a warning, and somewhat a promise. But it is directed towards Eren, their eye contact shared over Krista's body. No one says anything in reply, but the commentator clears its throat.

 **“Krista will be left here for the rest of this game, as a reminder of the rules.”** The Dealer settles back down into the seat at the head of the table and picks up the cards. It shuffles them, and every time it does so the cards begin to get soaked with bloodied fingerprints. The commentator breathes out a small laugh. **“And with that, let’s begin round three!”**

 

**OPTION EXEMPT.**


	21. NO OPTION.

The Dealer shuffles the cards with ridiculous violence, slamming the set down onto the table to square the pack off. It sends small drops of blood flying, and the room seems to time itself just right so that the lights that had been focused on Eren and Krista now begins to fill the room once again with a low and weak glow.

Ymir’s face comes up from the dark, pallid and sweating; her eyes unblinking as she stares at Krista’s body and every organ that lies around it, her palms still trapped around one of Krista’s hands. Annie is in much the same way. Her chest heaves, mouth gulps, trying to force air into her lungs. She winces as her first card scrapes across the top of the piles of intestines and The Dealer points its head towards her as though trying to stare her down. Annie keeps eye contact and carefully peels the card off of the organ.

Mikasa and Eren’s cards slice through the air one after the other. He waits for the second card before turning them both over, but Mikasa looks at her first one with a strong twinge of determination.

Then the second one comes around. Mikasa’s eyes get darker, cloudier. A glance over at Annie leaves him with the impression that she feels much the same way. Everyone it too emotionally taxed to hide what they feel.

Looking down at the blood-soaked cards on the table, Eren takes a gulp and flips them both over.

He laughs when he sees his hand. The Ace of Clubs and the Queen of Hearts. He has twenty-one, and he’s safe.

Eren gasps out a relieved laugh and shakes his head, looking over at Mikasa, at least letting her know that he’s safe. She smiles weakly and looks back down at her own cards. Ymir watches him keenly and quietly.

The Dealer leans over the body on the table to offer Annie a third card. “Twist.” Her voice hitches as she says the word, and she coughs lightly. The third card hits the guts on  the table just as the first one had, lodging itself in a neat crease in the organ. Annie grimaces, her nose scrunching up at the bridge of her nose, and she plucks it out between her thumb and index finger and lies it upright. Her breath comes out heavy at the sight of the Eight of Hearts, not quite pleased, but determined, decently sated. It’s enough, it’s something.

“Twist.” The word falls out heavily from Mikasa’s lips, desperate in its own way. The Dealer lays the top card in front of her. The Three of Spades. Nothing at all.  She immediately looks upset, and Eren’s heart tugs. It’s not good. He may be alright but she is not good. This isn’t going right.

“Stick,” Eren says without any hesitation, keeping his eyes on Mikasa as she stares at her cards. Ymir perks up from across the table, as though the situation has suddenly become a lot more interesting to her, that the morbid fate of someone else a distraction from her own mourning.

**“Reveal your cards.”**

Eren turns his over so that he can watch Mikasa turn her own hand, to keep a tough eye on Annie’s cards. The blonde turns hers first. It’s the Five of Clubs and the Two of Diamonds, but accompanied by her Eight of Hearts she has fifteen. Enough to win against Mikasa.

Two and eight… and then her three. Thirteen.

The Dealer reaches over to Krista’s hand to pull the gun from her dead fingers. It slides the gun over the bloody table to Mikasa, hitting the lungs and stomach along the way, keeping the hat on its head low over its eyes.

It comes to a stop between where Eren and Mikasa sits. He reaches a hand out to get it, pull it away, but Mikasa stops him short, grabbing his fingers and squeezing them so tightly it feels as though she could break them with ease.

“No,” she tells him, her eyes watering hard. They threaten to spill over. And then she pushes herself forwards him and into a firm hug, burying her nose into the top of his shoulder with a harsh sob. Eren pulls her closer, gripping her jumper to try and pull her closer. Mikasa leans slightly against his bad leg, sending a jolt of pain through the limb. It makes him twitch, come to the realisation that this is real. That she is leaving him.

“Don’t… please don’t.” Eren mumbles the words over and over into the crook of her neck, biting his lip to try and fight back tears. Armin never sunk in, and now Mikasa.

Is it worse that he’s getting the chance to say goodbye?

Mikasa shakes her head into Eren’s shoulder. She has to. Her arm stretches out for the gun on the table. It scrapes, metal against wood. Eren turns his head to the sound, the black of the gun barely visible through his blurring eyes.

“Look away,” she croaks.

“No—“

“Eren. Please.”

The grip around his neck tightens. She look up to him, her face close to his, and he nods. Not because he agrees. But it’s what she wants. Mikasa’s mouth shakes, the loss of her teeth making it impossible to bite them, to grimace the same way as before. So she does it with her eyes. The way her eyebrows push together is enough of a goodbye. No one wants to say it. None of them want to believe it. It’s still unbelievable. Real, but still not upon her. The gun could just be a toy, the gun could be her index and middle finger pointed to her temple as though it is the barrel with her ring finger ready to pull an invisible trigger. So that’s what she pretends to do. It’s not real. It’s just a game… and she just lost it.

She pulls away from Eren harshly, kicking his chair at the same time until it’s thrown back against Levi’s. It topples on its axis, and Eren almost collapses into the space between Levi and the table.

Mikasa grips the gun in her left hand and faces away from Eren, silently hoping that he cannot see as she pushes the cold metal far into her temple—it’s just her fingers pressing into the skin, she tells herself—and puts her fingers onto the small flick of metal. It gives slightly under the weight, then slightly more as she presses further and further, the sound of something triggering inside clicking against her ear. The sound of iron-tainted spittle is loud in her ears. The click of the gun against her head is the loudest, and explosion that seems to ring, the pain nothing. It’s black.

Eren jolts at sudden noise, trying to correct his chair by pushing back on shaking arms against the table. It does not work. One of the legs of his chair is stuck in one of Levi’s, and it leaves him desperately trying not to collapse onto the man in front of him. He struggles but cannot move, only sinking further into the fabric and the blur of his tears. So he turns his head, and manages a glimpse of her body slumped on the floor, the gun by her side and blood beginning to drip in a pool around her head.

 **“Ladies and gentlemen… congratulations!”** The commentator laughs loud and hard. Eren turns his face around and buries it in Levi’s knee. It’s there, the fabric of his dark jeans coarse against his leaking eyes. **“The final four. From fifteen to four. Eleven gone… and three more to go.”**

The Dealer stands up from the table and collects the cards without a noise before steadily walking around the table to collect the gun. Eren keeps his head down. Ymir and Annie watch it move around the table to collect the final instrument in its game before tipping its hat to the two women and walking away.

**“Well that certainly was an interesting round. I never get a player so late in the game defy me like this… it was very refreshing, even if it did get messy. But no matter, let us move on.”**

Muffled footsteps rise out of the darkness, the sight of four ghostly figures loom towards the table. There is no pace to their gait, but each one stumbles along with an easy tap, bringing in items or dragging away the table. It’s rough, an uneasy exchange that shouldn’t really be… but it is. Ymir and Annie watch the shadows take away the three empty seats and the three bodies that were in them. Eren only begins to bring his head up when he feels a weight on his head, and he looks up to see that Levi has placed his hand there, watching one of the shadowy masses haul Mikasa’s body up into the air to carry it away. He gently grips the hair and keeps Eren’s gaze away from the half of the girl’s face that has been blown away.

Eren instead shifts his head to look up at Levi. “You okay?”

Levi grimaces. He takes that as a ‘as good as I can be’, and just nods in response.

The table is moved away, and in its place a few shadowy masses bring along tall wooden boxes, all painted black. Four of them. Each is at least seven feet tall, but only small around the base; only maybe two foot along each side. A small door faces towards the remaining four people and each has a small name printed in white cursive onto the surface: Annie, Eren, Levi, Ymir.

Eren attempts to sit up again. He presses one hand into Levi’s chair, another into Levi’s leg to help steady himself as he tries to lift up. One of Levi’s feet helps kick the stuck leg away, and the chair drops just in time for the final shadow to disappear into the black.

**“Everyone, I’d like to introduce you to The Booths.  Each one of you has your own booth. Could you please step inside the one that has your name written on it.”**

Ymir immediately gets up from her chair and opens her door. It clicks shut behind her.

Annie takes a moment, looking over to Eren and Levi before she stands. She moves over to Eren without complaint, her face almost impassive, and helps to heave him up, Levi unsteadily getting to his feet afterwards.

“I’m sorry,” she whispers close to his ear, taking him over to his own booth and helping him stand inside. Eren only assumes that Levi has found his own way to his booth, as shortly after the click of his own door, a faint sound to his right is heard.

The box is small and black, a stool inside just big enough for him to sit in. It feels slightly like a photo booth, but instead of a bright screen there are four buttons before him, each labelled with the name of one of the four remaining contestants. His knee and stump hit the wall, all sides constricting and claustrophobic and only making the tears that haven’t quite left his eyes worse.

Each button is stuck far back into the wall through a square gap, each one labelled with a name in the same order as the booths are placed. He notices that his own name is labelled in red rather than the fluorescent white that the rest are written in.

 **“I’m sure that you have noticed the buttons by now,”** the commentator remarks, **“and each of them represents one of the people competing against you, and then yourself. This round is simple; pick one of these people to eliminate.”**  It leaves a long pause, letting Eren have time to wonder what it means. The voice chuckles slightly before talking again.

**“The rules: one person must be chosen; this does not mean that you can all chose yourselves and hope that no-one loses. If the votes are even then everyone will be punished. You can also not refuse to press a button. Doing either of these will result in a rule break and therefor an immediate expulsion from the Game Show of Death. One of you will go. Who will it be?”**

~~**READER THE CHOICE IS YOURS.** ~~

~~**WHO DOES EREN VOTE TO KILL?** ~~

~~**A)** **ANNIE**~~

~~**B)** **HIMSELF**~~

~~**C)** **LEVI**~~

~~**D)** **YMIR**~~

 

**CONTINUE TO NEXT CHAPTER.**


	22. OPTION D

**YOU CHOSE D) YMIR**

Eren cannot see his hand in the darkness, but the closer he comes to the fourth button the more his hand is bathed in a red light. Ymir’s name is bright above it, and some part of him knows that he should feel guilty for pressing this button.

But he doesn’t.

Something in him has been telling him that she was strange from the start. Everything she did—both her and Krista—seemed too distant. The way she shot Connie without any hesitation, the absence of any remorse; the moments of complete pain that she’s just shrugged off. He just doesn’t think she’s… normal, and he hates thinking that, but that’s how he feels. So he presses the red button underneath her name, and everything inside the black booth goes quiet. Eren listens to the sound of his own breath pumping through his lungs, and tries to figure out what the others would have chosen.

Levi… fuck, he has no clue who Levi would have picked but there is a niggling feeling in the back of Eren’s head that tells him that Levi would chose himself. Even the way he is, completely stunned with pain, the realisation that Hanji is no longer with him must have been there. Eren wonders if he is enough to keep Levi going, and if Levi is the same for him.

When it comes to Annie he has no clue. She’s just strange. If it were him in her shoes he would have thrown a fit, complained constantly about being back in when it was her that made the first move to leave. But instead she is playing along, and he’s not sure if that scares him. That, and she is the only one of them that appears healthy, complete. The rest of them are at least missing something.

Ymir would pick the option that made her win. She’s made that clear, and it wouldn’t surprise Eren if she chose Annie.

Eren just doesn’t want anyone else to die. But it has to happen.

And so he waits inside the dark box, staring straight ahead and keeping his hands on his knees. The bad leg twitches and flares up with heat, but he ignores it by biting into the back of his bottom lip. He can deal with this.

Then, slowly, a square of light brightens in front of his eyes. It’s white and only about seven inches wide, but the screen is there and growing to a dazzling whiteness. It jumps slightly around the wall in front of him and crackles like a silent film until words are tapped out onto the screen.

**THE RESULTS:**

**0 VOTES- LEVI**

**1 VOTE- EREN**

**1 VOTE- ANNIE**

**2 VOTES- YMIR**

Eren sighs out when he sees his name, but it bites to know that his vote matters. By now everyone knows that this isn’t a joke; if the voice says that that’s the results, then Ymir is as good as gone.

What he doesn’t want is to see what the commentator will do to her.

The door opens up behind him with a soft click, letting in a thin beam of light through the crack. He turns around on the chair and pushes it open as far as he can. Grabbing onto the doorframe, he stands as best as he can and leans against the wall. The blood in his bad leg feels as though it is rushing downwards all at once, but he figures that this is the fault of the drugs wearing off.

The commentator will give him some soon. Right?

A hand grabs the arm that supports himself against the wall, and he jolts forward with a yelp. Levi stumbles ahead of him, his mouth open and panting for air, but his eyes set forward as he concentrates on getting far enough away from the tall boxes. They only manage a few steps before the door to the booth slams shut violently.

Annie helps to take Eren, and Levi settles himself flat on the floor and struggles for breath. Eren watches him, wondering how much pain Levi must be in, and leans his weight against Annie until he drops clumsily onto the floor besides the other man and grips his hand, hoping that Levi can at least concentrate on pushing some of the pain out onto something else. His fingers feel as though they are about to break under Levi’s grip, but it barely registers. Instead he focuses on the last booth, the walls now completely clear like glass, and Ymir frantically screaming and kicking the walls from the other side.

It doesn’t look as though she can see them, her eyes roaming all over the glass with no particular aim. Her dull fists hit the glass, leave small, wet marks where the bandages make contact, her feet dancing as she spins to try and find the outline of the door that seems to be slowly melting away until Ymir becomes trapped on all sides by the booth.

And then it begins to fill with liquid. It trickles out of the base and up around her boots. She looks down at it and opens her mouth as though making a noise, then flinger herself back as some splashes up and against her hand. But the liquid still rises, almost slightly thicker, heavier than water. Ymir jolts in the liquid, and it seems as though all of a sudden she realises what it is. Her hands hit the walls, knees, feet, the liquid sloshing about and forcing her face to contort into growling grimaces that turn into silent screaming.

“It’s acid,” Annie comments quietly. Eren cannot tear his eyes away; he just feels so desensitised to it.

It rises higher, almost coming up to Ymir’s knees, and it seems to be beyond help. Parts of the bottoms of her black trousers float away in stringy, globular messes, and the skin below is starting to look red. It must be painful, her eyes are watering, hands held up high to try and get them away from the wet, but it does nothing. The water just fills the box, and soon it passes her knees and raises up her thighs to her hips, where her mouth opens wide and she screams without a sound.

Teeth gritted, she bares it. Eren can hardly stand to watch, and he tears his eyes away just to check that Levi is okay. He’s not; he’s pale and sweating, his eyes open and staring at Ymir with an almost disgusted expression, but his grip still gets tighter when her expression just grows more and more distressed. It takes time for the acid to rise, and every time it reaches a new marker—her waist, then her chest, and then to her shoulders—the three that are left find it harder and harder to watch.

Ymir’s lower legs are bright red, blood seeping out in swirls around her flesh and mixing into the acid and turning it a pale pink. Her body shudders with pain in the small area, the top of the water just below the base of her neck shivering as she moves. Both of her hands have fallen below the line, pawing close to the surface but never breaking. The wounds are open and bleeding, the exposed flesh of her neck growing raw when it sloshes and stays on the skin. Everything feels slow, torturous. This is not short, the time stretched out painfully, the energy that Ymir seems to hold onto no matter what seeping away as she struggles. The stoicism is gone. She’s dying, she knows it. Her movement comes to an end and she slumps her head against the glass and legs her weak knees buckle.

Annie jumps forward as Ymir’s chin sinks below the surface of the water, and that is where her body hangs. Ymir’s face stays above, but the rest of her stays underneath, dissolving slowly.

That’s when the level rises again.

Small jets at the base of the tank ripple the liquid and fill it up just that little bit more. Ymir’s feet stay on their toes, the only thing keeping the soles of her feet safe is the rubber that has managed to stay better than her own skin. The rest of her is peeling away, the acid going from a dull pink into an opaque red that leaves Eren unable to see what is happening to her body inside of the glass. Her face dips below the surface… and it’s gone. He doesn’t even spot it go below, but Annie’s drawing breath comes in sharp when she spots it too.

The three of them remain quiet for a moment, waiting for something to happen. Eren counts in his head, using the dull thud of the pulse in his bad leg to help measure the seconds. It might be ten minutes, or around then, for the commentator to talk. But the voice is quiet, in his ear, as though whoever is speaking is leaning in close and whispering hot breath directly onto his skin.

 **“Eren,”** he jolts away as the voice talks, **“you need your painkiller , don’t you?”** Eren pulls his eyebrows together and turns to the voice, but it tuts at him lightly, a slight weight on his shoulder, the invisible figure resting himself there. **“Don’t move. The other two cannot hear me. This is between us.”**

Eren does not say a word, clenching his teeth together in frustration, and the commentator chuckles. **“Good. Now, listen to me. If you want your painkiller, you need to retrieve it.”** He wants to hit whoever is talking to him. He’s sick of the games. But one more. One more and that’s it, he thinks. It has to end somewhere. **“It’s in Ymir’s booth… but that’s not the only thing in there. There’s more. If you are willing to stay in there long enough to get it. A gun. Something to keep Levi alive.”**

It’s got him, it knows what to say. Looking down at Levi, Eren knows that he is not in a good way. He has to at least know, and so he stays stock still except for the light squeeze on Levi’s cold hand. The commentator practically purrs in contentment when it realises what Eren wants to know. **“For your painkillers,”** it starts, **“all you have to do is go into her booth and find it. For the other two… five minutes. Five minutes in there with her and you will get you the other things.”**

The voice goes, and Eren looks back at the tank. The top of the liquid inside froths pink, and even from this distance he can see chunks floating around in the water. Annie stands close to the tank, just… staring, shocked but not quite showing it on her face. But he has to make a decision soon. The commentator does not like waiting; it wants results and fast. But how much can he even take? Levi is on the edge of death, barely clinging on judging by the way his breathing almost stops at times, but is putting himself through the pain of what happened to Ymir even worth the risk?

After all, only one person is leaving and Eren wants it to be himself.

 

~~**READER, THE CHOICE IS YOURS.** ~~

~~**DOES EREN:** ~~

~~**A)** **NOT ENTER YMIR’S BOOTH**~~

~~**B)** **GO IN TO FIND HIS OWN PAINKILLERS**~~

~~**C)** **STAY IN THERE FOR THE WHOLE FIVE MINUTES**~~

 

**DECISION MADE. CONTINUE TO NEXT CHAPTER.**


	23. OPTION B

**YOU CHOSE B) GO IN TO FIND EREN’S OWN PAINKILLERS**

 

Annie’s head turns when she hears the sound of something scraping against the floor. Eren, hands on either side of his body, turns himself around in the seated position with a light grunt. He takes a moment to look over Levi and the now almost empty bag of IV fluid. The needle hangs out of his arm slightly, and it seems to tug against his pale skin enough for it to seem like it’s about to tear. Eren does his best to lower it a bit, and despite being out for the count, Levi’s eyebrows still crease as the tension on his skin is relieved. He pats Levi’s cold hand and just hopes that the decision he has made is the right one.

Eren pushes himself along the floor in stilted jolts. His hands stretch back behind him and he heaves his body towards them, forcefully hitting his coccyx against the hard concrete. The shock travels down through his leg and into the stump that drags along behind him, each movement becoming more difficult, his hands sweating against the slippery ground, his good leg pushing along weakly to try and get to Ymir’s booth faster.

“What are you doing?” Annie asks.

He replies with a short grunt, and it doesn’t quite seem to satisfy her. She watches Eren drag himself across the floor and towards the tall—and now vibrant red—box.

“Eren,” she says again firmly, “what—“

“Just… just let me.” He pushes himself one last time and slides up next to the tall structure. It seems to tower above him from his position on the floor, and inside the liquid swirls, tiny slithers of meat floating around in the vile liquid. The top of the tank seems a mile away.

He drags himself once again, circling the base of the booth as best as he can until he finds a set of indentations on the back wall, small pockets that lead up to two hinges far above him. His arms reach for the highest ones they can grab onto, and Eren heaves his body up with the help of his one good leg. The other bumps painfully against the glass and he winces, trying his best to get his good foot into a hole by jumping up and scrambling the best he can for the next hole up. One arm pulls and he rises just a few inches higher, the top becoming more visible with every crash into the glass until, finally, the sight of a small round wheel on top of a steel lid is visible.

From below, Annie watches Eren. There’s not quite concern, but from the way she looks as Eren turns the stiff wheel he can tell that she’s not happy about what he is thinking. But she stays silent.

It takes what seems like an age to turn the lid of the booth enough for it to open up, the small handle also dug into the iron surface the only way to get it open. Eren tries with his right hand first, but it’s too heavy, and he tries to twist his whole body around to open the top, his one leg the only thing stopping him from falling. He teases it open before sticking his hands in the gap and flipping the whole thing upwards. He tips forward.

Below, the water swirls with a current, and the scraps of clothing and meat that haven’t yet been dissolved float to the surface before dropping back down. Eren takes a gulp of air; it’s acrid, get it stinks of blood, almost like an uncooked steak. With both hands he lifts himself up enough to swing his legs over the glass, his good leg dangling over the water. It hovers as he tries to rile himself into doing the task.

 _It’s just a few feet down,_ he thinks, _go in, grab it, get out._

But it’s not that simple. There is a dead person just swirling around underneath him, contained in the thick glass he is sitting on. And he will have to be in that.

His good leg stays in position, a few inches above the frothing water and slowly, carefully, he lowers it in.

The sole of the shoe goes first, and he feels nothing. The red water sloshes up onto the fabric of his sneakers but cannot quite yet soak through. And so he moves it in further. It reaches the line just below where his shoe stops and his ankle peeps through. The water drips over it slowly and…

It doesn’t feel bad. There is a light tingle against his skin, an electric buzz that doesn’t offend his nerves in any way. He barks a small laugh in relief. Has the blood diluted it? His foot slips in further, and it rises from his ankle to halfway up his calf. He moves forward slightly on the edge of the glass. His jeans sick to his skin, the colour almost black with the dark liquid, and it rubs but not in a way he cannot handle. He just has to be quick.

His knee goes in and Eren shuffles himself again, his seat sliding from the ledge of glass and down the sheer wall. When his stump hits the acid, the burn is immediate, more painful than the tingle that appears everywhere else. He muffles it with a loud breath and continues to sink down thinking over and over that if he gets it done he can get out. The less damage the better.

The blood and acid rises to his waist, and Eren notices that larger chunks rise up to greet him. Frazzles clumps of dark hair still attached to the scalp bob close, bits dripping away and separating. Eren tries to ignore it, slipping further in.

His foot feels less tingly and now burns slightly. This only proves as a warning to go faster, and he ducks himself down as far as he can into the water, arms still holding onto the edge of the tank and his head still above the waterline. But he cannot find anything, only the chunks floating around.

“Shit.”

He tries to stretch his foot out further, but fails. He can’t find a thing, and he knows that this was not made to be easy. The booths were made to be taller, a few inches over a foot on his height, and he knows what this implies.

Eren will have to put his face into the acid.

His lower leg is more than itchy. It feels as though something his burnt him and stung him all at once; like fire ants crawling all over his skin, biting and causing jolts of pain that make his muscles twitch before setting the spot above a flame. The movement makes it worse and better. The flap of his clothes against his skin relieves the itch slightly, but fresh acid simultaneously pours against the blisters Eren can feel forming. He can’t let that happen to his eyes, and if it gets into his lungs, well, he knows that he’d be done for.

He inhales heavily and then exhales slowly before repeating and then, with one final breath, pushes his palms against the brink and sinks below the surface.

His eyes burn immediately, and even pinched shut the acid feels as though it is rushing in, washing every millimetre with burning hot sand. The taste is on his lips, the smell rising even under the surface as his foot scrapes through what feels like a mound of bones. It hits something square and he smiles, the acid rushing in between his teeth and into his mouth. Eren almost gags at the taste and pulls himself up and out. He spits it, his mouth feeling rough and incredibly dry, but at least he knows where it is. The only problem is… he’s not so sure that he can get it up with only one foot.

If he had two, then fine. He could have grappled the small box between his feet and dragged it up. But he knows that this requires him to sink below the surface, risk his hands becoming as sore as the entirety of his lower half now is, just for this box.

He has to do it.

Repeating the process of breath, release, breath release, he sets himself up for the dive. One clean hand rubs over his eyes, and his vision clears of the murky red. Everything is churned up further now; bone fragments float, material scraps across his legs. He is not sure whether it is his or Ymir’s clothes that float to the surface.

And finally, with one final breath, Eren violently ducks himself below the surface. His arms pummel downwards, reaching as far as they can to try and find the box. Bone and fraying flesh tickles the tips of his fingers, and he brushes past where he remembers the box to be, finding a sharp corner. His eyes are burning, lips starting to taste bloody from the assault… it hurt, and it’s too much. Eren jolts back upwards and breaks through the surface with a deep breath.

But it’s not good enough.

One rasping breath later and he forces himself under again. His lungs protest and every limb feels as though it is on fire, the attack the acid makes creating fissures in the wrinkles of his hands. The searching gets desperate. The tips pass over the corners again, and he tries to pry it up. It gets past the first knuckle then falls, only for him to catch it all over again, wriggling it up and into a firm grasp as best as he can. The box, smaller than the last, is wrapped in something soft, but also firm to the touch, and knowing that it’s in his hands sends a jolt of energy through him, every nerve telling Eren to get out.

He kicks his leg against the floor of the booth and he shoots up and out, throwing the box out and away. He chokes out a gargling noise, spitting the tainted acid on his lips and not even caring about where he lands. He pulls himself up over the side and legs himself fall, his good knee and right elbow slamming against the wall of the tank as he falls.

“Eren!” He feels something being thrust into his face, a jacket of some kind, and he takes it despite the protest from his hands. The fabric is too rough against his skin. He pats it over his eyes, opening them to see large flakes of skin sitting on the dark fabric of the jacket Annie had been wearing. Gently he does the same patting motion over his neck and on his face. He rubs his hair through only for a lot of it to practically fall out with the motion, followed by the soft dabbing of his hands. Annie holds out the box to Eren and he takes it from her with a painful smile.

“Thanks,” Eren rasps. His throat is on fire, tongue swollen and dry.  He cannot even swallow with the pain that rakes through when he tries to breathe through his nose.

He could never have managed five minutes. The skin on his lower leg is blistered and already looks as though it wants to fall away.

He is quick to undo the lid of the box despite the difficulty to pry it open with crumbling fingernails, and Annie looks on, her eyes distant but her mouth pressed into a hard and sad line, before wandering over to check on Levi.

Eren watches her as she does it. Despite not having done this to himself before—Armin first, and then Levi doing it for him—it doesn’t seem as daunting as it perhaps should. He finds the vein in his arm and presses the needle in. The way Annie leans down over a sleeping Levi is almost impossible not to watch. She looks over the IV bag, now dry, and follows the tube emptying the last big of liquid into his blood. She watches his face, and after a few moments, leans her hand across his face and gently holds her index finger underneath his nose just as he empties the last of the painkiller into his bloodstream.

She suddenly moves more. Her fingers press against the side of his neck and her head bobs downward to lie parallel to his chest. Eren rips the needle from his arm and shuffles forward only to have a bout of burning pain tears its way through the muscles of his legs from where the clothes rub his skin.

He wishes he had taken them off. He wishes he hadn’t gone in.

Eren shuffles towards Levi the best he can. “Annie what—“

She cuts him off with a stare. Her jaw tightens, nostrils flaring slightly as she tries to hold in the scream she looks as though she wants to release. Her breathing matches Eren’s in its intensity; deep, ragged breaths… and with a painful bite of her lip, Eren doesn’t need the words to be said. He knows.

“He’s not breathing.”

 

**OPTION EXEMPT.**

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Happy Valentine's day.**


End file.
